Kate Mulley

Last week, in the whirl of the Royal Wedding, I heard from the New York International Fringe Festival that my play The Tutor has been accepted for the 2011 Festival. I’m very excited to start working towards a full production after a staged reading of a one act version last June and a reading of the expanded script in December. It’s about an SAT tutor with a dark secret and how it affects one of her students and his family. It’s a fun play, but also a little bit dark and sexy. Something for everyone! Dates/venue won’t be announced until July, will keep everyone posted!

I’ve somehow managed to miss productions of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Black Watch throughout the years. A stunningly choreographed docudrama about the Scottish infantry regiment, its history and its experience in the Iraq War, Black Watch is playing at St. Ann’s Warehouse for the third time in the past 5 years. I must admit to be a little skeptical about the decision to produce this piece again rather than experimenting with new work, but I’m glad it returned to New York so that I could finally see it.

One of the first plays about the Iraq war to be written from the perspective of the soldiers, Black Watch quite deftly maneuvers between meta-theatricality, choreographed movement pieces and explorations of the dialectic of boredom and terror at war. The mostly young Scottish touring cast do an exceptional job portraying men on the brink of discovery, hoping that they will find some meaning to their lives through signing up. The history of the regiment and its relation to the history and pride of Scotland are cleverly devised and I noted in the program that many of the actors have family members who fought with the Black Watch, which adds to the experience. It’s a strong example of what smart theatrically-minded people can achieve with a good script, compelling material and some purposeful movement.

And then I came home and found out that Osama bin Laden had been killed by Navy Seals which was almost surreally fitting (while still being inherently complicated).