Feature: Theatre - Gregory Burke on The National Theatre of Scotland’s production of Black Watch - Barbican from Nov 27th
Published: 18 November 2010
by DAN CARRIER
FOR those of a pacifist bent, the sight on TV and road hoardings adverts imploring young men and women to “Be The Best” and promising the chance to learn a trade by signing up to a life in the armed services is galling. It is a sign of the lack of apprenticeships available in civilian life –and with the soaring costs of higher and further education, to gain any sort of vocational qualification joining the army is the only logical step.
The fact is, says award-winning playwright Gregory Burke, whose play Black Watch is on at the Barbican, working-class men who would have previously been able to find on-the-job training in an industry make very good soldiers.
His play focuses on the experiences of the Black Watch regiment in Iraq, and is based on his interviews with veterans.
“Those adverts make it sound like Club 18 to 30 with rifles. But I think it is a fact that people from poor backgrounds make the best soldiers,” he says.
“It is the same with the American army – although people there also join to get free health care. It is the need for work – that is why they do it and why they have always done it.”
The regiment, which hails from the Tayside region of Scotland where Gregory grew up, has offered work to its sons for more than 300 years, and the play takes the cast from the back rooms of Scottish pubs to the siege of Fallujah in Iraq, one of the defining battles of the war.
“These guys work in shipyards, they join unions, they have a left-wing background but they also join the army,” he says. “I suppose that is a paradox. These industries have gone now but the soldiering is still there for young people, if there is nothing else to do.”
Burke wrote Black Watch for the National Theatre of Scotland and it made its debut at the Edinburgh Festival in 2006, before going round the world and winning glowing tributes. While it tells the stories of ordinary working-class men in extraordinary situations, he says it is incorrect to say his work is a polemic on the evils of armed conflict, although the effect on soldiers is clear.
“It is not anti-war,” he says. “I was very adamant that I just wanted to tell the stories of the soldiers. It could only be about their job.”
He says this has helped make the play accessible to a wider audience than it would have otherwise been. Recalling a Belfast show and the reaction he got from hardened Nationalists, he says: “I spoke to ex-members of the IRA who said they would never feel any sympathy towards the British army, but they did after watching my play.”
Burke drew on hours of interviews with soldiers who witnessed first hand the bloody, violent battle in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. He knew people who served in Black Watch, which was one of the reasons he was drawn to write about it.
“The process of writing was interesting,” he says. “I went to school with some of these guys.”
But while this meant he could appreciate how they considered their unique experience, he still had to approach the writing in a careful way, to get them to speak openly.
“I realised if you ask questions people clam up,” he says.
“But if you just sit there and have a drink in a pub with them, the stories come out.
“They spoke about each other rather than themselves, and when they started on Iraq, they were full of anecdotes.
“It was at times very hard sitting there as a writer and listening in to this. You quickly realise this was the defining moment of their lives – they have fought in a war and it will never leave them.”
He fears that for those who fought in street battles, the experience still has effects that have yet to materialise.
“Psychologist studies show the average time for post traumatic stress to show itself is 14 years after the incident,” he says. “This means there is the spectre of mental health problems further down the line.”
Authenticity was vital.
“We had a drill sergeant with the original cast,” says Burke.
“We picked up all sorts of tips we would otherwise not have noticed. For example, the British army sun hat is so badly designed, you can’t wear it and fire a gun at the same time, so they cut it in a certain way. Soldiers have seen it and said they noticed these details, though theatre-goers would not.”
He says such details may seem unimportant if the dialogue is good and the story well cast – but to him it was vital.
“I had to represent them truthfully,” he said – an aim those “Be The Best” adverts driving young people into recruiting offices could do with listening to.
• The National Theatre of Scotland’s production of Black Watch is at the Barbican from November 27-January 22.
020 7638 8891, www.barbican.org.uk