A PATCHWORK OF THE PERSONAL AND POLITICAL
My Name is Rachel Corrie is a solo show comprised of a patchwork of actual e-mails and diary entries by a young female activist in Gaza who was tragically run over by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003. Edited together by Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner, it is not a particularly well-written play, yet the current production at Theatricum Botanicum makes the most of this collage-like script, grounded in Samara Frame’s superb performance as Rachel.
Frame crafts Rachel Corrie as an outgoing, spectacularly multifaceted young woman. Her body tenses over her laptop as she engages in passionate e-mail debates with her neoliberal dad, but she is equally apt to giggle and roll about on the floor when she receives an e-mail from a crush back in the US. Frame’s Rachel Corrie embraces the stage with restless energy and passion; one wishes more young Americans showed such fervor, for whatever cause. Susan Angelo’s smart direction keeps this one-woman show dynamic, using the full range of Theatricum’s outdoor arena; she has a nuanced gift for bridging from the mundane details of life to an expansive contemplation of a human’s place and purpose in the cosmos.
Unfortunately, this production suffers from an awkward employment of technology. While a slide show sometimes brings a welcome visual supplement to Frame’s performance, it also has the occasional effect of turning the show into a didactic lecture. A video segment is disappointingly amateur, with rough cinematography and ambient noise. Overamplified sound recordings of Rachel’s parents feel at odds with the naturalism of the rest of the production. The play is strongest when simply focused on Frame’s performance, which is strong enough to hold an audience’s attention without the gadgetry.
Since its London premiere in 2005, My Name is Rachel Corrie has met with unending political controversy for its one-sided perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although Corrie volunteered with the ISM (International Solidarity Movement) on the Palestinian side, her writings – and Frame’s exuberant physicalization of her words – do not always propagandize as much as they show a young, globally-conscious activist engaging with complex political issues to the best of her (admittedly limited) knowledge and ability. With a concerned and questioning spirit, Corrie uses pencil and paper, a keyboard, and an Internet connection to grapple with the meaning of life in the face of violence. Hopefully audiences will leave the theater in this same spirit, eager to educate themselves on the other side of the political debate.
As an aesthetic entity, then, it may be a stretch to call My Name is Rachel Corrie a “good” play, but in Theatricum Botanicum’s often gripping production, this work instigates an urgent and necessary dialogue.
stellis @ stageandcinema.com
photos by Ian Flanders
My Name is Rachel Corrie
scheduled to end on September 22
for tickets, visit http://www.theatricum.com/plays.htm
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
This is pure anti-semitisim pure and simple. Bashing Israel is the new, chic version of anti-semitisim. Your so called “diversity” is in typical leftist thinking. Speak up…as long as you agree with me.
How many times did you show the actual video of the Israelis begging Rachel Corrie to please move, and then her RUNNING toward the bulldozer and falling while the machine was unable to stop?
How many times did you show terrorists hidding in mosques and nursery schools
firing rockets at innocent Israeli citizens? How many times did you tell how Israel
handed over the Gaza strip (so called “land for peace”) and was immediately and
continually attacked from there? How many times did you report the Palestinian
doctrine “death to all Jews!” or Israel has no right to exist? How many times did
you report that Israel and the so called, Palestine were granted independence on
the same day and all the arabs/muslims did was attack Israel the very first second
it happened. How many times did you report how Palestinian and muslim children
are helped and saved EVERY DAY in Israeli hospitals. How many times did you report
how our taxpayer money has gone to the “palestinians” for infrastructure and food
only to be used for weaponry against Israel? How many times did you point out that
there is 100% censorship in the muslim countries, and especially the palestinian
areas where Israel, like the U.S. is a free and open society? In your “diversity” of
opinion, why do you not point out the second class citizenship of females in the
muslim/arab/palestinian society? How many times did you show how they teach
children to be HOMICIDE bombers in wonderful “palestine”? How many times did
you report the fact that the arab world made these people perpetual “refugees” to
be used as political pawns? How many times did you point out that prior to 1967 when Israel was attacked, that Jordan ran the West Bank and didn’t want the so-called Palestinians. How many times did you point out that during that same time, Egypt ran the Gaza strip and didn’t want the Palestinians. Where were all your protests then?
How many times during your accusations of Israelis “appartied” did you show black, ethiopian Israelis AND ARAB Israelis. Your typical one-sided, leftist hatred of Israel, Jewish people (though unfortunately, there are countless, hard leftist Jews) and that all sides are equal is repugnant. A palestinian terrorist is as innocent, if not more so in your mind than a five year old, Israeli pre-schooler. So stay in your little insular, leftist world filled with the hate you so loudly denounce. “Oh put away all arms and let’s live in PEACE!”Great, why don’t you start with the terrorists who feel that causing death and destruction is doing Allah’s work?
Amad, thank you for your passionate comment. I actually visited Israel this past summer with a group of Jewish Americans and agree with you; the situation is much more complex than “My Name is Rachel Corrie” paints it to be. Rachel Corrie gives only one person’s perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and I appreciate you following up with a different perspective on the violence.
A small window of a young american girl who felt a need to do something about a perceived wrong….that conviction eventually caused her to forfeit her life.. does anyone “AMAD” YOU willing to leave the comfort of safety and risk your life for a stranger in a foreign land…she was brave, stupid, naive, but caring of another human being without regard for her own life and I am saddened by the pain for both jew and arab…