Visceral play offers sobering perspective on Gaza

As you listen to the descriptions of trauma and devastation being visited on Palestinian families daily; as you hear about the wanton killing and destruction by Israeli soldiers; and as you learn that the best efforts of activists and humanitarians are being, at best ignored, at worst, subjugated by pro-Zionist interests, you can’t help but think how current, how immediate this script feels. 

But My Name is Rachel Corrie was written in 2005, two years after an Israeli soldier in a bulldozer ran over the desperate 23-year-old Corrie who was standing on a mound of dirt, hoping to prevent the destruction of a Palestinian home. It was the home of a family she had been living with in Rafah. 

Rachel Corrie was an American peace activist. Born and raised in Olympia, Washington, Corrie was erudite, articulate and passionate about human rights from an early age. At the end of the play, there is a clip screened of Corrie, aged 10, giving a speech at a Fifth Grade Press Conference on World Hunger. 

Corrie traveled to Gaza in 2003 to join the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a non-violent activist group made up of international volunteers protesting the destruction of Palestinian homes by illegal Israeli settlers. It was during the Second Intifada (2000 – 2005), an extremely turbulent time in the region. 

Corrie became a familiar figure, dressed in a high-viz orange jacket, yelling through a blowhorn, standing in front of soldiers and bulldozers. She believed her status as an American citizen would protect her. She was wrong. 

“My name is Rachel Corrie” is the first sentence of the speech she gave at the Fifth Grade Conference. It is apt as a title because the entire play is comprised of Corrie’s actual writings, from her diaries, her emails, her letters. It includes entries and exchanges from when she was a teenager, well before her fateful trip to Gaza. These help build a portrait of Corrie, making her real, three-dimensional, flawed, relatable. 

My Name is Rachel Corrie, the play, was compiled and written by British actor Alan Rickman (Love Actually, Harry Potter films, among many others), and Katherine Viner, noted British journalist and playwright who became and still is the first female editor-in-chief of The Guardian. It premiered in 2005 in London with good critical reviews. 

This current mounting by CAM Productions is in the intimate Theatre Redfern. It’s a minimalist set design by Paris Burrows, with the stage effectively divided into two locations. On one side is a bedroom with a desk, chairs, boxes and strewn clothing, and a vivid red brick wall. On the other is a damaged wall and piles of rubble and miscellany. 

Gillian Kayrooz has created a soundscape of deep, rumbling bass sounds and a range of other ambient noises that create an immersive experience. 

The solo play is performed with incredible commitment and palpable, often visible, emotion by Courtney Miller. She is unflawed in what must be a very challenging, exhausting uninterrupted 90 odd minutes for any performer. 

Despite its subject matter, My Name is Rachel Corrie has moments of levity, even some laugh out loud scenes. Fundamentally, it is a moving, haunting, thought-provoking statement of one woman’s true experience of the worst of humanity. 

Until September 8 (Thursday to Sunday)

Theatre Redfern, 11 Cope St, Redfern

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