All About Jewish Theatre - Rachel Corrie brought back to life

London's small Royal Court Theatre, situated in the elegant Sloane Square,(11-29 0ctober 05) is permeated by Arabic music as actress Megan Woods delivers a 90-minute soliloquy about the Palestinian struggle against Israel to a packed audience.

Oscillating between light-hearted reflections on life and toxic rationalizations of Palestinian terror, the blonde-haired and blue-eyed Woods is the star and only performer in a play which rivals Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ in its antipathy toward the people of Israel.

Woods plays 23-year-old Rachel Corrie, an International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist who died in 2003 while attempting to prevent the bulldozing of a home being used to supply Palestinian terror networks with weapons.

According to the play, Corrie was killed after climbing on top of a moving bulldozer. Corrie's family alleges that she was killed deliberately, but an IDF investigation concluded that her death was accidental.

My Name Is Rachel Corrie, written by Guardian Weekend magazine editor Katharine Viner (who herself is Jewish) and actor/editor Alan Rickman, is based on Corrie's diary and e-mail messages, and begins with the reflections of a young American woman who leads a dull and unfulfilled life. Then the entries suddenly shift in tone to sarcastic, rhetorical, and highly politicized statements.

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, however, Viner denies that the play is in any way political.

"My Name Is Rachel Corrie is not a vehicle for a political message, but a portrait of one woman and her experiences - and how she's changed by them, both in the US and in Gaza," she says.

Yet Viner and Rickman have produced a manipulative play that attempts to delegitimize Israel under the pretense of exposure to "accessible writing." And the audience at the Royal Court Theatre is bombarded with descriptions of alleged IDF actions devoid of context.

"The soldiers bombed a market in Gaza city!" yells Woods/Corrie.

"Water was stolen in the night by bulldozers they are shooting anonymously into homes what we are paying for here is truly evil."

Throughout the play, Palestinian terror is described only as "resistance" and is either defended, justified or downplayed, usually in high-pitched tones.

"I look forward to seeing people resist," says Woods/Corrie in an email, after approvingly reading out her mother's description of suicide bombings: "They are trying to feebly defend themselves!"

Viner portrays Corrie's words as simply the curiosity of a young American trying to understand her government, and cites the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington as the point of transition.

"After September 11th, she [Corrie] became increasingly interested in US foreign policy," claims Viner, who was asked by the Royal Court Theatre last year to edit Corrie's writings into a drama.

"Corrie said she was 'missing a connection to the people who are impacted by US foreign policy.' An obvious place to travel to make such a connection would be Israel, Gaza and the West Bank."

After lying to an Israeli customs official about "visiting an Israeli friend," (a tactic recommended by the ISM Web site), Woods gains entry to Gaza and sets to work "trying to prevent demolitions of civilian homes."

But even here, in such a harsh criticism of Israel, Woods/Corrie shows her ignorance and naivete: "I'm really new to talking about Israel and Palestine."

Woods goes on to deliver a two-minute lecture to Jewish Americans about "the differences between Israeli government policies and all the Jewish people."
Viner also suggests that the majority of Israelis would be sympathetic to the play: "The implications of what Rachel Corrie said and did are clearly critical of the occupation and its impact on the Palestinians in Gaza. But isn't opposition to the Gaza occupation increasingly reflective of mainstream Israeli opinion, given that a majority supports the planned pullout?"

Watching My Name Is Rachel Corrie, however, it is somehow difficult to believe that an Israeli audience would identify with a play that so successfully ignores their plight.

"Everyone must feel safe. That is the most important rule I know," says Woods, reading out one of Corrie's diary entries.

"What is left for people here?" she asks, referring to the question of organized terror. "What about the right of people to defend their land? Can 50-year-old Russian guns and homemade explosives really damage the fourth-largest military power?"

Woods/Corrie then demands of the audience: "Do you not think most people in similar situations would do the same?"

Apparently none of this extends to the people of Israel, however, for not a single reference is made to the traumas suffered throughout the four-and-a-half-year terror campaign against the Israeli population.

The play concludes with a short video in which a fellow ISM activist describes Corrie's death, and images of Corrie as a child addressing her school.

British audience members left the hall sobbing and comforting one another.

"It's so sad," said a middle-aged man with tears in his eyes.

Robin Stamler, who has recently completed a PhD at Birckbeck College and is a member of the Academic Friends of Israel group, told The Jerusalem Post that the play is being used by leaders of Britain's media who are hostile to Israel as a vehicle to delegitimize the country.

"The play openly serves to promote an anti-Israel narrative that is already entrenched in important parts of British society," said Stamler, adding: "This is a play written by a Guardian editor, heavily promoted by that newspaper, produced by one of the top British actors, and staged at the leading venue for political theater. Pro-Israel Jews won't find a comfortable home in this section of British society, and it is a section with great influence and power."

In a letter to colleagues, Stamler said he was "distressed that the deaths of other Rachels, together with the deaths of so many other Israelis, have been dismissed within the anti-Israel narrative promoted by the theatrical establishment and sections of the media that are focusing on this play. Somehow I doubt that the Royal Court will be staging a play to commemorate them."

In a recent Guardian article, however, Viner wrote: "She [Rachel Corrie] became a martyr to the Palestinians, a victim of their intifada who had stood up to the mighty Israeli army."

Corrie play is not alone ,My Name Is Rachel Corrie is only one of a host of plays that have emerged in Britain focussing on or referring to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Talking To Terrorists, written by Robin Soans, also produced by the Royal Court Theater, deals with terrorism in Africa, Israel, Turkey and Iraq, and seeks to "understand what makes ordinary people do extreme things."

The play appears to be guided by the notion that terrorism has negotiable demands, and that dialogue with terror groups is "the answer."

Another Soans play, The Arab Israeli Cookbook, which opens for a second run in July, is an ambitious production with 42 characters who are supposed to represent an amalgamation of the Jewish and Arab Middle East, where Israeli and Palestinian culture, food and suffering are expressed.

Theater critic Alen Sierz said of the play that "the show has a lot of humanity and charm, but it also overstays its welcome."

While European and western playwrights attempt to understand the Middle East, the realities of the region seem to elude their intellectual and political grasp. As Egyptian playwright Ali Salem, shunned in Egypt for his cultural contacts with Israel, once wrote: "I'm not ready to deny reality as I see it."