My Name is Rachel Corrie
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My Name is Rachel Corrie is a play based on the diaries and emails of Rachel Corrie. The diaries were edited by Katherine Viner and Alan Rickman, who directed it. Corrie was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who traveled as an activist to the Gaza Strip during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. She was killed when she tried to stop an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Caterpillar D9 bulldozer operating in a Palestinian residential area of Rafah, next to the border with Egypt - an area the IDF had designated a security zone and which the IDF claims contains a network of smuggling tunnels connecting Egypt to the Palestinian side of Rafah[1]
Alan Rickman first staged My Name is Rachel Corrie in April 2005 at the Royal Court Theatre, London and it went on to win the Theatregoers' Choice Awards for Best Director and Best New Play, as well as Best Solo Performance for actress Megan Dodds[2]. The play was scheduled to be transferred at the New York Theatre Workshop in March 2006. However, the New York theatre decided that the play was to be "postponed indefinitely", in fear of reactions from different political parties. Rickman and Viner denounced the decision and withdrew the show [3][4]
| “ | "This is censorship born out of fear, and the New York Theatre Workshop, the Royal Court, New York audiences - all of us are the losers." | ” |
The play received the following review from Michael Billington in April, 2005
| “ | ...Theatre has no obligation to give a complete picture. Its only duty is to be honest. And what you get here is a stunning account of one woman's passionate response to a particular situation.
And the passion comes blazing through in Corrie's eloquent reaction to her father's inquiry about Palestinian violence. As she says, if we lived where tanks and soldiers and bulldozers could destroy our homes at any moment and where our lives were completely strangled, wouldn't we defend ourselves as best we could?...[5] |
” |
The play received the following review from Clive Davis in April, 2005
| “ | ...As for the scenes set in Israel — brilliantly evoked by Hildegard Bechtler’s bullet-pocked concrete set — an element of unvarnished propaganda comes to the fore. With no attempt made to set the violence in context, we are left with the impression of unarmed civilians being crushed by faceless militarists. Early on, Corrie makes a point of informing us that more Israelis have been killed in road accidents than in all the country’s wars put together. As she jots down thoughts in her notebook and fires off e-mails to her parents, she declares that “the vast majority of Palestinians right now, as far as I can tell, are engaging in Gandhian non-violent resistance”. Even the late Yassir Arafat might have blushed at that one. ...[1] | ” |
My Name is Rachel Corrie played at the West End's Playhouse Theatre in London from March through May 2006. In July 2006 Josephine Taylor took over the role and the show played the Galway Arts Festival, before moving to the Edinburgh Fringe in August. It opened at the Minetta Lane Theatre in New York in October 2006, with Megan Dodds returning as Rachel.
The play was canceled in Canada, Variety reports [2]:
Jack Rose, from the CanStage board -- while admitting he has neither read nor seen the script -- said that "my view was it would provoke a negative reaction in the Jewish community." And philanthropist Bluma Appel, after whom CanStage's flagship theater is named, concurred. "I told them I would react very badly to a play that was offensive to Jews."
The Seattle Repertory Theatre is running My Name Is Rachel Corrie from March 15 - April 22, 2007, directed by Braden Abraham. This showing has drawn publicity, and spawned the creation of a website, RachelCorrieFacts.org [3], intended to provide information and context to balance to what many perceive as a one-sided, anti-Israel diatribe.
