BUFFALO NEWS REVIEW 3/9/08
"Corrie's Life Follows Script at United Artists"
By Ted Hadley BUFFALO NEWS CONTRIBUTING REVIEWER
Three-and-a-Half Stars
When 7-year-old Rachel Corrie was in second grade in Olympia, Wash., she
noticed some rules of the classroom hanging from the ceiling. One read: “Everyone
should feel safe.”
Rachel liked that. The precocious girl decided to adopt that rule as a life
guide.
Flash forward to March 16, 2003. Corrie, now 23, is a recent recruit in the
International Solidarity Movement (ISM), ostensibly a nonviolent peace
activist group working for Palestinian civil rights in the Gaza Strip. She had
some brief training in nonviolent resistance, how to act as a human shield
against Israeli military operations, roadblock removal, damaging the West Bank
“barrier” and other tactics. On this day, she was protesting the
threatened demolition of a private home — the Israelis said the place was a
terrorist safe house — planning to block a D9 armored tank/bulldozer by
standing in its path.
According to the Israeli government, the tank driver, distracted by
protesters, never saw Corrie and crushed her.
“My back is broken,” were her last words.
The ISM called the incident murder. The Israelis called it a “tragic
accident.”
ISM film footage, published worldwide, was later dismissed as doctored.
Controversy has raged since about her “sweet bravery” with no
definitive conclusions, fueled by Corrie’s “international” status.
All of this has led to what British journalist Tom Gross has called “the
cult of Rachel Corrie.” Songs and books preceded a play, “My Name
Is Rachel Corrie,” compiled and edited from Corrie’s journals and
e-mails by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner. It has just opened at Buffalo
United Artists, in collaboration with Subversive Theatre Collective. Tim Klein
directs the extraordinary Katie White in the title role.
The play caused an uproar when it was initially canceled in New York in
2006 — the producers feared Jewish community backlash — enraging literati
worldwide, who cried censorship. The play has since had global exposure with,
again, sides taken. Corrie was ill-prepared for the Gaza Strip, but if her
diaries placed that area’s constant violence in historical context, the play
doesn’t. Audiences get a one-sided view of events. Because of this, Corrie
has been branded “dedicated but deluded.” There are hints of anti-Bush
protests but no mention of her involvement in an American flag-burning
incident. A theory suggests that ISM may have set her up — an American death
would garner sympathy for the Palestinian cause.
White paints a vivid picture of Corrie: impetuous, free-spirited,
fun-loving, lover of family, a list-maker, a need to help, not particularly
well-prepared to live in a world of curfews, checkpoints and gunshots.
White is fascinating to watch both in her early girlish days and later when
the enormity of her Middle East situation surfaces. The near-perfect, studied
White did lose her focus once or twice on opening night; the play seems
under-rehearsed, and an evening-ending video segment is grainy and
unintelligible.
Corrie knew that she couldn’t “change the world by herself.”
Of all the words she wrote, and she was prolific, those should be her legacy.
“Everyone should feel safe.” Not a bad motto.
Theater Review
“ My Name Is Rachel Corrie”
Drama presented by Buffalo United Artists and Subversive Theatre at the
Main Street Cabaret, 672 Main St. For more information: 886- 9239,
www.buffalobua.org .
| 
