Any time the Israeli Government is questioned publicly in the United States, controversies are bound to arise and charges of anti-Semitism and terrorist conspiracies are destined to follow. No matter how damning the evidence against the government, or how compelling the Palestinian people's stories of persecution, it will be met with some degree of disbelief.
Braving this controversy, the play My Name is Rachel Corrie"" opened in Madison Friday night. It politely asked its audience to take a hard look at Israeli actions in Palestine.
The play is based on the diaries and e-mails of Corrie, an American peace activist who lived in Gaza before being killed by an Israel Defense Force bulldozer while peacefully resisting on March 16, 2003. While in Gaza, Corrie sent scores of e-mails home depicting houses, wells, greenhouses, orchards and gardens being razed by Israeli bulldozers. She wrote about innocent families forced to hide in the center of their houses as the IDF tanks drove by and fired, and about children who lived mere miles from the ocean that were walled off from ever seeing it.
Rachel's parents were in Madison recently and discussed their daughter and the play. ""We have to get Rachel's words out, because she had wanted people to see this,"" said Rachel's mother, Cindy.
Corrie wrote of the solemn but peaceful attitudes of the hospitable Palestinians she met, calling their reactions to the IDF occupation ""Ghandian non-violence.""
Her story is overwhelming, but the play is more charming than angry. Editors Alan Rickman (""Dogma,"" ""Harry Potter"") and Katherine Viner have organized the writings of Rachel Corrie into a surprisingly optimistic 90-minute play that reads like any whimsical American girl's diary. ""Rachel Corrie"" is designed to give the audience a look into Corrie's life and tell the story of how a normal girl born to midwestern, middle class parents became a fearless activist. By the end of the play the audience sees Corrie as someone they could have known and liked.
It is important to note that Corrie and the organization she worked for, International Solidarity Movement, believed in Israel's right to exist, but disagreed with the severity of their recent actions. They were not adamantly anti-Semitic, but supported all oppressed peoples in the world. The people involved with the production don't give much credence to the perceived controversy. They believe that, after watching the play, any honest, informed and objective person will at least think that something might be wrong with some of Israel's decisions. ""The process of this play is to get people to talk to each other,"" director Carl Vitale said.
To keep the play focused on Corrie, the lead actress and UW student Brittany Jordt - the role is performed by a local performer in each of the play's international stops - chose not to be interviewed.
The set is simple. There is a bed, a desk and two shelled out walls. There is one actress and occasionally, recordings of Rachel's parents playing in the background. It is a set-up that seems like it could drag on, but the story is so compelling and the acting so intimate that anything extra would have taken away from the connection the actress built with the audience. Jordt embodies Rachel's wanderlust as well as her compassion and vigor for marginalized people.
This is a sad play at times, but mostly it is fun and full of great self-deprecating humor. The audience sees Rachel not as a radical, but a quirky girl who loves list making, chasing boys, painting, poetry, nature, her family and, most of all, justice. She makes fun of the fact that she started smoking when an IDF bullet pierced her tent and how an elderly Palestinian woman acted as her surrogate mother, chiding her for smoking and not calling home enough. ""My Name is Rachel Corrie"" shows Corrie as a human being, not a radical anti-Semite as some publications have depicted her.
