Reply #27: Grief Crosses All Boundaries

[Englander]

By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
Updated: 11:40 a.m. ET July 27, 2007

July 27, 2007 - Maybe you’ve heard something about the play, "My Name Is Rachel Corrie." You probably haven’t seen it; few people have. But you know it’s controversial, that it’s not balanced, that it’s too sympathetic to the Palestinian point of view and doesn’t fairly present the Israeli side.

That’s all true, and it was enough to get a scheduled production in New York City canceled. But the play is also a remarkable piece of art, and it’s not meant to be balanced. It’s based solely on the writings, journals and e-mails of a young woman volunteering for a peace organization who was run over by a bulldozer operated by the Israeli Defense Forces in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, on March 16, 2003.

Originally staged in Britain, the play opened in Shepherdstown, W.Va., in July amidst much consternation over how it would be received. The Contemporary Theater Arts Festival housed at Shepherd University is the brainchild of producer-director Ed Herendeen, and he stood his ground in the face of the uproar. One board member resigned, but fears that the controversy would hurt ticket sales proved unfounded. The festival is having its best year yet fulfilling its goal of producing edgy and original theater pieces. Rachel Corrie’s parents were there the weekend I saw the play. Talking with them made the experience especially meaningful.

Craig and Cindy Corrie were living in North Carolina when Rachel, their third child, announced she wanted to go to Gaza. Her mother’s first reaction was to search the Internet for a similar stressed place in the world, like India, that might attract their idealistic daughter without posing as much danger. Rachel, fresh out of college and living in Washington State, had gotten caught up in the peace movement in Seattle, where she signed up with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), an organization set up to support Palestinian nonviolent resistance to the Israeli military occupation. The Corries had never thought deeply about the Israeli-Palestinian problem, and their sympathies, like most Americans, tended toward the Israeli side. They worried about their daughter’s safety. But she was a 24-year-old woman living in another state, and this was her decision to make, not theirs.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19996131/site/newsweek/