Rachel Corrie became a victim of her own idealism. An aspiring humanitarian, this naïvely idealistic girl-turned-woman just wanted to make a difference in the world.
Corrie, an American activist and native of Olympia, Wash., was killed in Palestine when an Israeli bulldozer struck her down on March 16, 2003, less than a month before her 24th birthday. Israeli factions called it an accident; Palestinians called it murder and hailed her as a martyr.
Corrie had gone to the Middle East to join the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a group that opposed the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. There she became a "human shield," using her body to block Israeli razing of houses in Rafah. Instead, she was crushed and rushed to a hospital, where she died approximately 90 minutes later.
Adapted from Corrie's diaries and e-mails, "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" offers an intimate glance into a young Northwest woman's soul. The script was pieced together by British actor-director Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner, a well-respected journalist for the London newspaper The Guardian. Rickman directed the London and New York productions; Braden Abraham helms the Seattle Repertory offering with an insightful sensitivity to the material.
When the play first opened, it made quite a splash in London, where it was lauded. But when the producers tried to transfer it to New York, the 90-minute, one-woman drama fueled a controversy and theatrical brouhaha. Even the Seattle version brought out a gaggle of protesters and spawned dissenting ads in the program, but in true theatrical tradition, the show went on.
"My Name Is Rachel Corrie" may not be a great play, but it's not a bad play either. Despite the partisan overtones, Corrie's Washington roots add significance and sentiment to the production, which may be enough incentive for Seattle audiences.
The talented Marya Sea Kaminski gives an emotionally engaging performance as Corrie. With playfulness, Kaminski disarms the audience immediately with her Cameron Diaz smile and refreshing likeability, then switches the mood to passion and poignancy by the play's end.
Corrie is no conventional miss. She's messy, reads under the covers with a flashlight, keeps journals, smokes incessantly, likes cats and makes long lists. Of the five dead people she wishes she'd met: Salvador Dalí, Karl Jung, MLK, JFK and an unspecified "Josephine" (Baker? Bonaparte?). And the five people she wants to hang out with in eternity: Rainer Maria Rilke, Jesus, ee cummings, Gertrude Stein, Zelda Fitzgerald and maybe Charlie Chaplin.
In her writings, Corrie often conjures poetically inspired visual images. Priests with panties on their heads. First ladies who carry handcuffs and bullwhips. Russia, with its coaldust on the snow - flawed, dirty, broken and gorgeous. And in preparation for a run-in with her former beau and his "hoochie-ass" girlfriend, Corrie even imagines herself in a Mountain Dew commercial, dancing on the beach with a bevy of sinewy friends.
Jennifer Zeyl's set serves a dual purpose. It starts as a messy hodgepodge of a bedroom with a futon supported by egg crates, a map of the world glued on the wall and piles of books and clothes strewn about. Later the same setting becomes a battered war zone, framed by broken concrete - with the promise of more to come. Obadiah Eaves' atmospheric lighting and L.B. Morse's sound design effectively suggest Corrie's contrasting worlds: nature's beautiful vistas in Washington state as compared to the constant threat of explosive artillery in Gaza.
As you might expect, there's a political preachiness about this work, which caused several audience members to nod off. Yet others teared up during the passages describing the plight of the children. When Corrie spews opinions on international policy, she's obviously in over her head. But when her humanity shines through, "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" emphasizes the futility and tragedy of these conflicts. You can't help but think about Iraq. You want to stand up and shout to the world, "How do you justify killing in the name of God?" and "When will it all end?"
Sadly, the answer is "Never." The unrest in the Middle East has been going on since the beginning of time. Given other circumstances, Corrie could just as well have sacrificed her life to support the opposite side of the conflict.
Not everyone will want to wade through 90 minutes of activist ramblings.
On opening night, some denounced the play as a trivial indulgence - "Who cares what some obscure girl thinks?" Truthfully, the middle segments drag a little. But in a world where people sit side by side and e-mail each other instead of having a conversation out loud, we need to be reminded of our own humanity.
Did Rachel Corrie set out to save the world? Maybe not. She certainly didn't expect her very personal thoughts to become public fodder. Maybe she just wanted a cause and she was susceptible.
"Looking for where I fit into all this forced me out into the community," she mused. "I can't cool boiling waters in Russia. I can't be Picasso, I can't be Jesus. I can't save the planet singlehandedly. I can wash dishes."
At the end of the play a video of the real Rachel Corrie is projected on a stage wall. She's 10 years old and speaking at her school's Fifth Grade Press Conference on World Hunger. Her sweet, girlish voice rings out with sincerity and innocence, "I'm here because I care."
Perhaps those five words should be her legacy.
'MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE'
Leo K. Theatre, Seattle Repertory
Tuesdays-Sundays through April 22
Tickets: $10-$40, 443-2222,
seattlerep.org
