Shakespeare Theatre to host Britain's 'The Great Game' and 'Black Watch'

In a coup for its F Street showplace, Sidney Harman Hall, the Shakespeare Theatre Company has snared two marquee, topically adventurous productions from Britain for next season, further evidence that the company is mounting a robust challenge to the Kennedy Center as the city's premier venue for British theater.

The two-week engagement in September of "The Great Game: Afghanistan" -- a series of 12 original short plays about Afghanistan -- and the Washington premiere next January of the captivating Scottish drama "Black Watch" represent significant advances in the Shakespeare's efforts to fill the 775-seat Harman with important work from abroad.

And on the heels of last September's sold-out visit of Helen Mirren in the National Theatre's production of "Ph?dre" -- the only American stop for that London production -- the booking of the two new shows signals a healthy uptick in the competition to bring top-drawer British drama to Washington.

"We had such a good time hosting the National that we're really pleased that these productions are coming in," said the Shakespeare's artistic director, Michael Kahn. "I wanted very much to have a home for international work in Washington besides the Kennedy Center. And I sure hope this proves to be something we can continue to do."

Both works will be launching American tours in Washington. While the acclaimed "Black Watch," a product of the National Theatre of Scotland, has been to this country previously, "The Great Game" will be making its American debut at Harman Hall on Sept. 15 before moving on to other cities, including Minneapolis and New York.

Political theater of the kind championed frequently on London's stages has long been a lagging genre in the United States; the hope is that special-event programs of the variety the Shakespeare has planned will help to fill this curious gap. While the shows deal in different ways with the West's historical and current roles in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, neither work, the troupes involved say, seeks to preach or promote a single point of view.

"In no way is it a sermon," explains Nicolas Kent of "The Great Game," whose 30-minute plays survey everything from the 19th-century hostilities between Britain and Afghanistan, to the Soviet invasion in 1979, to contemporary American involvement. The 12 dramas will be spread over three evenings -- four per night -- and then on weekends, be staged all in one marathon day. Kent, artistic director of London's Tricycle Theatre, dreamed up "The Great Game," soliciting a gallery of dramatists to write on the subject of Afghanistan.

"I thought very much we were focusing all the time on the war in Iraq, and at that time Afghanistan was very much a forgotten story," said Kent, whose theater has created other pieces contoured to tumultuous modern-day events, such as "Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom," culled from verbatim testimony and other documents. (The play was presented in a local version by Studio Theatre in 2005.)

"I felt it was time to focus on Afghanistan and what had gone wrong there," Kent added.

The event, supported in part by the British Council, a global nonprofit organization that advances British cultural and educational interests, features a cast of 14, and works by dramatists from several nations, including American playwright Lee Blessing and British writer David Edgar. It will run at the Harman through Sept. 26, and the company, with help from the Embassy of Afghanistan, will supplement the visit with discussion sessions about the country, as well as displays of Afghan art and handicrafts.

"Black Watch," which will run from Jan. 25 to Feb. 6, 2011, tells in astonishingly theatrical, almost cinematic fashion the story of the Iraq war through the experiences of a legendary Scottish regiment. Gregory Burke's play, directed by John Tiffany, is based on interviews with soldiers on the ground in Iraq. After a premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2006, it went on to an ecstatic reception around the world, including an extended stay at Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse.

The Shakespeare was not the only company here that expressed interest in hosting the production if it ever returned to this country. Arena Stage explored the possibility of bringing it next season to its newly renovated campus in Southwest Washington. But officials there and at the National Theatre of Scotland ultimately determined the show's physical demands could not be accommodated.

That's when the Shakespeare Theatre reentered the negotiations, according to Chris Jennings, the company's managing director. "Black Watch" is ideally staged in a space 100 feet long, 75 feet wide and 25 feet high, with bleachers on two sides.

During a visit in December, Neil Murray, executive producer of the National Theatre of Scotland, had toured Harman Hall, and subsequently the Shakespeare sent him computer mockups of how the theater, built for flexibility, could be modified.

"You've got to have the audience facing each other and looking down on the action," Murray said. "That's what Chris and his team have managed to achieve for us."

Now, the Shakespeare has the job of selling the shows to the public. Unlike "Ph?dre" with the electric Mirren and Dominic Cooper, these productions won't have the benefit of bona fide box-office magnets. The concepts themselves are the stars. Kahn has his fingers crossed that the city's theatergoers will embrace these ventures. For Murray, the dream is that federal Washington comes as well, to hear what "Black Watch" has to say.

"Let's get the politicians in there, too!" he declared.