After seeing Wrecks last night and noticing a flyer for My Name Is Rachel Corrie at the Public Theatre, I decided that today would be a good day to try and check that out. I read a little bit about the controversy surrounding the play, which chronicles, through the writings of 23-year-old Washington state native Rachel Corrie, the home life and eventual aid efforts in Palestine of an optimistic young activist who travels with a group of "internationals" seeking peace for those Palestineans she feels are unjustly targeted by the Israeli government. The end to Corrie's life is the end to the play: her being struck down by an Israeli bulldozer while struggling to save a Palestinean home from destruction. An audience will likely bring in their own preconceived judgments of her character.
Megan Dodds in the title role of My Name Is Rachel Corrie (photo by Sara Krulwich for The New York Times)
The play is comprised of the journal entries and emails of Rachel Corrie and was compiled by famed actor Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner. Alan Rickman directed the minimal staging, which is executed by Megan Dodds as Rachel Corrie. The play was originally presented by the Royal Court Theatre in London, which is famed for presenting exciting new words (like those of some of my favorites -- Sarah Kane, Mark Ravenhill, and others), which was one of the reasons I was excited to see the play. When the production at the Royal Court originally sought to transfer to New York, the New York Theatre Workshop, which initially committed to the production, backed out due to fears of controversy over the play's subject matter and the proximity of the production to the illness of Ariel Sharon.
Finally produced at the Minetta Lane Theatre in a commercial production (NYTW is a non-profit theatre), the show deserves to be heard. Dodds gives a commanding performance, though it takes about a third of the play for her acting to really soar and for her to come into her own as the play transitions from Rachel's life at home to her time in Palestine. At many times during the play, Corrie's language is poetic and soaring. The flaws in the work, for me, were in the editing of Rickman and Viner. In using only the words of Rachel Corrie, they leave out much of the context for the events of the play. Characters referred to are only vaguely introduced, and the motivations and nuances of events are often subjugated for the purpose of flashy dialogue in search of emotional response.
And emotional response was certainly visible. The audience members next to me were audibly crying, and I saw several other theatregoers with tears streaming down their cheeks as the exited their theatre. It's obviously a production that produces strong emotion on one side of the Israeli-Palestinean conflict or the other, and it's definitely a great thing that this production stirs up a debate. However, not enough is presented in the context of the play for those less familiar with the events in question to be moved one way or the other.
As a side note, I saw Alan Rickman outside of the theatre before the show with a lot of members of the press, and I also noticed a group of individuals handing out pro-Israeli notices about the events in the play. There seems to be quite a bit of buzz about the show, and security was noticeably heightened.
Earlier in the day, I went to the New York Times-sponsered "Great Reads in the Park" event at Bryant Park. I had been thinking of going before, and I went mostly to see my friend Antonio do poetry slam with the group Urban Word NYC. He was very good, and the group was very exciting. I also saw a very interesting interview with Eve Ensler, the author of The Vagina Monologues, The Good Body, and other works, who had a lot of very provocative and interesting things to say about the state of politics, security, and gender today. Hearing her made me really want to experience her work, so I'm thinking of checking out one of her plays or books.
Anyway, it was a busy and fun day. Now back to the busy week.
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