At first blush, a play about an idealistic young American woman finding her voice and purpose in life while fighting for social justice might not seem like the stuff of incendiary political theater. Set the action in the Gaza Strip amid one of the most intractable conflicts in the world, add in some passionate polemics in support of the marginalized people of Palestine and against the Israeli occupation, and you have a recipe for one of the most radioactive plays of the past decade.
"My Name Is Rachel Corrie," which receives its New England premiere at New Repertory Theatre starting tomorrow, is based on the e-mails, letters, and journals of a 23-year-old activist from Olympia, Wash., who was crushed in 2003 by an Israeli Army bulldozer in Gaza while trying to block the destruction of a Palestinian home. The play enjoyed a wildly successful world premiere at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2005 and then moved to the West End, but it sparked a storm of controversy when New York Theatre Workshop chose to "indefinitely postpone" its planned US premiere in 2006. The theater's artistic director cited concerns expressed about the play by leaders in the local Jewish community.
News of the cancellation triggered criticism from all corners of the theater world, with prominent playwrights such as Harold Pinter and Tony Kushner and actress Vanessa Redgrave speaking out vehemently against the decision.
The Workshop tried to backtrack, arguing that it needed more time to prepare audiences and "contextualize" the play with post-show discussions and even a companion piece. But the equivocations simply fanned an already raging inferno. When all was said and done, an important New York institution, known for challenging audiences with provocative and experimental fare, had undermined its reputation.
The controversy raised a swarm of troubling questions. Why were the words of an American activist protesting in Palestine deemed so inflammatory? Why couldn't the play stand on its own, without "contextualizing" it with other points of view? And in an age when full-frontal nudity, explicit depictions of sex and violence, and barrages of F-bombs onstage barely raise an eyebrow, was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict one of the few taboo subjects remaining for theatergoers, many of whom have strong views on issues related to Israel?
"Rachel Corrie" was eventually produced off-Broadway in the fall of 2006, and it has since been coopted by factions on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian debate as a symbol to rally around. Corrie herself has been praised as a heroic martyr and denounced as a misguided, ill-informed naïf. Following complaints, planned productions in Miami and Toronto were shelved. When the Contemporary American Theater Festival in West Virginia mounted "Rachel Corrie" last summer, a board member resigned in protest.
New Repertory Theatre has faced its own set of challenges in mounting the play, whose text was shaped and edited by actor Alan Rickman and British journalist Katharine Viner. Stacy Fischer will star as Corrie. The theater had originally planned to pair "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" with the one-act "To Pay the Price," about the late Israeli Army hero Jonathan "Yoni" Netanyahu. But after the Netanyahu family heard of the plans, it asked that "To Pay the Price" be pulled from the lineup, deeming the two plays incompatible.
Forging ahead, New Rep replaced "Price" with the solo show "Pieces," written and performed by an Israeli-American, Zohar Tirosh, about her experience serving in the Israeli military in the mid-1990s, when peace seemed like a real possibility. The company is also surrounding the two works - staged in its 90-seat black-box space - with related panel discussions, talkbacks, readings, and films, including the Oscar-nominated documentary "Promises."
The New Rep's producing artistic director, Rick Lombardo, says that this mini-festival on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not part of an effort to deflect criticism of "Rachel Corrie," but is instead the result of nine months of planning and dialogue that he and his staff engaged in with various communities, from the Arab Anti-Defamation League to the American Civil Liberties Union to the Jewish Community Relations Council.
"Everybody wants to fixate on one play. But for us, it's never been about one play," he says. "Our goal was to have Rachel's voice be one of two. But the more we've explored the topic, the more our festival has grown to include a diversity of voices. We want to explore how a historical and cultural event like the Israeli-Palestinian situation spurs artists to create and spurs community dialogue."
While New Rep has fielded about a dozen angry phone calls, e-mails, and letters from both sides of the fence, Lombardo says no pressure has been applied from board members or major donors to cancel "Rachel Corrie" or "Pieces."
All the works in the program, he says, come from the perspective of finding ways to create peace, dialogue, and healing: "We're taking something that could've been divisive, that could've been seen as overly provocative to certain members of our community who feel passionately about this, and instead opened up the topic of conversation in a way that I think is ultimately going to have really positive outcomes - especially for folks who initially might have felt hurt and damaged by the production of either play."
Still, some observers wonder about the effort to temper the messages of "Rachel Corrie" with other viewpoints.
"I think there's a real danger in expecting balance out of art," says Cindy Corrie, Rachel's mother. "I just don't think art works that way. People create art from their experience and their perspective, and then we get to respond to it. And then maybe someone creates other art that has another perspective. . . . In striving for balance, I think there's a danger in it becoming a kind of censorship, a control over how we communicate and talk about things."
Both she and Rachel's father, Craig, insist that they're speaking in general terms and not making a judgment about New Rep's decision to contextualize the play. "I do think both plays need their own space. These are pieces of art - entities unto themselves," Craig Corrie says. Yet he acknowledges that the messages of the two plays could reinforce and complement each other, rather than contradict.
Playwright Christopher Shinn ("Dying City"), who was an outspoken critic of New York Theatre Workshop's decision to cancel "Rachel Corrie," says it does a disservice to artists to try to moderate their words by showing alternative perspectives.
"Audiences should be mature enough to see a strongly presented point of view, and if they don't agree with it, to maintain their disagreement with it, perhaps even be galvanized by it into better articulating their objections," Shinn says. "There's something disturbingly politically correct about the idea that any strong point of view has to be balanced by an opposing point of view - that we should never present one strong point of view in isolation, but to always make sure that it's balanced and contextualized."
Gideon Lester, acting artistic director of the American Repertory Theatre, says that his company looked into presenting "Rachel Corrie" as part of a series of plays on the Middle East that it was considering for last season. The idea never came to fruition, he says, but not because the company was skittish about "Rachel Corrie."
"I don't think theaters can be afraid of provocation, as long as we do it responsibly and not simply to rattle cages," Lester says. "There are many aspects of our life on this planet that need deep investigation. Theaters are public places, and public life should be under scrutiny in theater. So it's important that we don't shy away from difficult issues or simply program to please."
When it comes to incendiary political issues, Lombardo, Lester, and others agree that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains one of the most potent of our time, and therefore one of the most divisive topics a theater company can tackle.
"What's interesting about the conflict and ultimately the source of what's challenging about achieving peace is that there's not just an A point of view and a B point of view, and then you seek compromise between them. There's a thousand points of view," Lombardo says. "It's both the beauty of the problem and the horrifying complexity of the problem. And as an artist and as a producer, I've felt a responsibility to find a way to represent the diversity of perspectives."
Interestingly, "Rachel Corrie" has met with less protest in other parts of the country. A Seattle Repertory Theatre production had an extended run last fall despite leafleting from Jewish groups, and the play has been performed in such quintessentially Middle American locales as Des Moines, Omaha, and Albuquerque. Later this month, an Arabic-language production will open in Haifa, Israel, and then travel to Nazareth, Ramallah, Jaffa, and Jerusalem.
"I think that the brouhaha surrounding the play is probably greater than the play itself warrants," Lester says. Indeed, the tumult has threatened to drown out the passionate words of Corrie herself - something her parents and supporters are desperate to avoid. The message of "My Name is Rachel Corrie," they contend, isn't simply about a young woman's quest to illuminate the suffering of the Palestinian people.
"The first questions that Rachel asks [in the play] are: Who am I? How do I relate to the world? What are my values? When I develop my values, how do I act on them? That's what people are mulling around after they see the play," Craig Corrie says. "I think what Rachel demands is that you act on those values and beliefs - no matter what they are."
Cindy Corrie echoes her husband's sentiment: "I think the play is about the power of individuals to make a difference. And I hope that people go away from the play believing that they can make a difference, just like Rachel did."
