My Name is Rachel Corrie

CONTROVERSIAL PLAY PREMIERE IN CANADA AT THE MONUMENT NATIONAL

December 4, 2007 -Teesri Duniya Theatre and neworldtheatre join forces for a cross-national co-production of a play which has become a flashpoint for North American's opposing feelings about the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian land. My Name is Rachel Corriepremieres in Quebec at the Monument National, from Dec 6 - 22, 2007, featuring a team of nationally acclaimed, award winning artists: Adrienne Wong (Performer), Sarah Stanley (Director), Marcus Youssef (Collaborating director), Ana Cappelluto (Set and Costume Design), Peter Cerone (Sound), Itai Erdal (Lighting Design) and Candelario Andrade (Video Design) Jesse Ash (Sound and Video Systems Designer).

The play premiered at the Royal Court in London, England in the spring of 2005, to sell-out houses and rave reviews. Despite this success, theatres in New York and Toronto either cancelled productions or declined to produce it after publicly announcing their intentions to do so.

In March, 2003, 23 year old Rachel Corrie, of Olympia, Washington, was crushed to death by an Israeli Defense Forces bulldozer in the Gaza strip. A volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, Corrie was protesting the destruction of Palestinian homes. With the permission of the Corrie family, actor Alan Rickman and Guardian journalist Katharine Viner accessed Rachel Corrie's diaries and emails and edited a huge volume of written material into a 90 minute stage play. 

Passionate, sometimes irreverent and always intelligent My Name is Rachel Corrie explores an extraordinary young woman’s singular experience in a region most of us only know from the news. Rachel Corrie sought to discover for herself the human impact of her own country's foreign policies on people thousands of miles from her home, a small city a few hundred kilometers from Vancouver, BC.

Her words bear witness to the deracinating madness of war, a hysteria that infects not only those doing the fighting but also those ambitious to do the saving.                                                             – John Lahr, The New Yorker

QUEBEC PREMIERE
Montreal | Monument National | Studio Hydro-Québec 1182, St Laurent Blvd

DECEMBER  6 – 22, 2007
Wednesday to Saturday at 8:30 pm
Panel discussion with Craig and Cindy Corrie  Dec 8-9 after the play at 2:00pm
Saturday Matinée   2:00 pm,  Panel Discussion after show
Sunday   Matinée   2:00 pm,  Talk back after the show
Tickets :$20   Seniors and students: $18
Group rates: 10 or more  $15    Students 2 for 1 on Wednesdays   T. 514 848 0238
Box Office T. 514 871 2224

WESTCOAST PREMIERE
Vancouver | HavanaTheatre | January25 – February 3, 2008 (preview January 24)
*Presented in association with the  PuSh International Performing Arts Festival
www.neworldtheatre.com

ABOUT THE PLAY

Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old American peace activist from Olympia, Washington, who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer on 16 March 2003, while undertaking nonviolent direct action to protect the home of a Palestinian family from demolition.

Shortly after her death, several of her e-mails home from Gaza were published in a number of media outlets, including in the Guardian UK. British actor and director Alan Rickman was so moved by them that he approached the Royal Court Theatre about finding a way to tell Rachel's story onstage. A year after her death, Corrie's family sent the theatre 184 pages of documents: copies of Rachel's letters, e-mails and journals-some dating back to her childhood. Guardian journalist Katharine Viner was brought on board to work with Rickman at editing the material into a play. The two decided to let Rachel's story be told in her own words.

In April 2005, My Name is Rachel Corrie, directed by Rickman and performed by Megan Dodds, opened at the Royal Court Theatre, and became the fastest-selling play in the theatre's history, selling out two complete runs before transferring to the West End the following year. The play was critically acclaimed and won the Theatregoers' Choice Awards for Best Director, Best New Play and Best Solo Performance. The production was slated for transfer to the New York Theatre Workshop in March 2006, but six weeks before it was scheduled to open, the New York producers decided to postpone the production indefinitely, fearing political reprisals. Artistic Director James Nicola told the Guardian of London: “In our pre-production planning and our talking around and listening in our communities in New York, what we heard was that after Ariel Sharon's illness and the election of Hamas, we had a very edgy situation.” Nicola went on to say, “We found that our plan to present a work of art would be seen as us taking a stand in a political conflict, that we didn't want to take.” The Royal Court felt that the postponement was in effect a cancellation, and withdrew the rights. The British production eventually made it to New York's Off-Broadway Minetta Lane Theatre in October 2006. The play has since had US productions in Seattle and Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

In Canada, Toronto's CanStage had originally announced plans to include the play in its 2007-08 season, but in December 2006, Artistic Director Martin Bragg announced that he had removed the play from the lineup. Bragg cited artistic reasons, saying that he had been moved by reading the play, but that after seeing it in New York, “It just didn't seem as powerful on the stage as it did on the page.”

neworldtheatre presented the play as a staged reading at the World Urban Festival in June 2006, in conjunction with Judith Marcuse Projects.

Artistic Director’s Statement
Rahul Varma
Teesri Duniya Theatre

Palestinians called her an “Angel of Peace” for defending against the demolition of their homes. The Israeli military argued that the demolition of Palestinian homes was a necessary measure to destroy terrorist cells, and that Corrie brought about her own death by putting herself in harm’s way.  While the opposing sides accuse each other of lies surrounding the circumstances of Rachel’s death, there is no lie in the fact that a young life of great potential was lost. The truth about the circumstances under which Rachel Corrie died must be brought to public notice – and theatre has a role to play in it. 

In producing this play we are well aware that we are stepping into the eye of a storm of controversy that, depending on who is speaking, elicits charges of conservatism, betrayal, or anti-Semitism. The controversy gained force when two notable companies – one in the USA and the other in Canada -- first committed to producing the show, then backed out. The New York Theatre Workshop’s artistic director James Nicola publicly justified his company’s decision saying he felt unable to present the play “simply as a work of art without appearing to take a position." Martin Bragg, artistic director of Toronto’s Canadian Stage Company said, “It just didn't seem as powerful on the stage as it did on the page.” 

We disagree in the strongest terms. While we consider censorship odious, we consider self-censorship more so.

There is an insidious practice of avoiding critical issues and the search for truth among those theatres that would pretend that it isn’t the role of theatre to engage in historically contested issues.  Truth cannot be found without engagement and critical examination. While acknowledging that truth in drama is forever elusive, we believe the search for truth is a primary task of theatres. 

Her private diaries show that Rachel Corrie was an exceptionally gifted writer. She reminds me of Anne Frank whose personal writings about a heinous reality made her an international symbol of lost human potential.  Yet, while no one has contested Anne Frank’s right to write against Nazi cruelty, many would suppress Rachel Corrie’s right to point fingers at the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians -- in spite of the fact that Corrie made clear distinctions between the behavior of the Israeli state and that of the Jewish people. There are those who would hurl charges of anti-Semitism against anyone who desires to hear what Rachel Corrie had to say. This distasteful tactic of invoking a fear of anti-Semitism to suppress discourse on contentious difference is, in my opinion, tantamount to a second slaughter of Rachel Corrie. 

In the words of our co-producer Camyar Chai of Neworldtheatre, “what is at the heart of our two companies’ co-production is the freedom to tell a human story with honesty and compassion … and uncensored.”

Thought from the directors of the play -- Sarah Stanley and Marcus Youssef

Dates mark our comings and our goings. They also mark our in betweens, and open up the simple question of what each of us was doing when.

On March 30, 2003, the late American writer and thinker Susan Sontag presented the Oscar Romero award at the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. In her keynote address Sontag invoked the memory of two people. "Only two," she said, "Who were heroes -- among millions of heroes." The first of these was the award's namesake, Oscar Romero, Bishop of San Salvador, murdered by US-trained paramilitaries while saying mass in his cathedral in San Salvador in 1980. The second was the subject of our shared experience tonight, Rachel Corrie.

In her address, Sontag said, "To fall out of step with one's tribe; to step beyond one's ribe into a world that is larger mentally but smaller numerically -- if alienation or dissidence is not your habitual or gratifying posture, this is a complex, difficult process. It is hard to defy the wisdom of the tribe, the wisdom that values the lives of members of the tribe above all others. It will always be unpopular -- it will always be deemed unpatriotic -- to say that the lives of the members of the other tribe are as valuable as one's own. It is easier to give one's allegiance to those we know, to those we see, to those with whome we are embedded, to those with whom we share -- as we may -- a community of fear."

Susan Sontag presented the 2003 Oscar Romero award to Ishai Menuchin, the chairman of Yesh Gvul (There is a Limit in Hebrew). Yesh Gvul is the movement of Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The usual way of heralding people who act on principle is to say that they are the  vanguard of an eventually triumphant revolt against injustice. "But what," Sontag asks us, "If they are not?"

On February 27, 2003 Rachel Corrie wrote the following to her mother:

"I think you know this about me. I really value words. I really try to illustrate and let people draw their own conclusions."
Thanks for drawing yours.

Sarah Garton Stanley and Marcus Youssef
Montreal, November 25, 2007

An Interview with Directors Sarah Stanley & Marcus Youssef

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About the Artists

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About Teesri Duniya Theatre

Teesri Duniya Theatre is dedicated to producing socially and politically relevant theatre that supports a multicultural vision of society, promoting interculturalism through works of theatre, and creating theatrical styles based on the cultural experiences of visible minorities living in Canada..The company is committed to multiethnic casting and stories.

Teesri Duniya began as a South Asian theatre company in 1981. Today it is one of the few theatre companies in Canada, and the only one in Quebec, where artists of every culture, color, language and background work together.
In the early eighties, the company produced plays in Hindi dealing with issues affecting the lives of South Asian immigrants in Quebec (Julus, Ek the Gadha, Bhanumati ka Pitara, Ghar Ghar Ki Kahani, Ahsaas and Darwaze Khol Do). Then, in 1985, the company began producing English-language productions with plays such as The Great Celestial Cow, Job Stealer , Isolated Incident, Equal Wages, Land Where the Trees Talk, No Man’s Land and Divided We Stand.  We choose to produce cutting-edge avant-garde plays on difficult yet relevant subjects. We have produced such plays as Counter Offence, Reading Hebron, Bhopal, Zahreeli Hawa, Noah’s Arc 747, Ali & Ali And The Axis of Evil, Ms. Oriented to name a few. Counter Offence was Mirror critic Gaëtan Charlebois’s top pick of the 10 best plays of the decade.  In 1999, we produced L’Affaire Farhadi, a French translation of Counter Offence, earning the distinction of being the first culturally diverse company to produce a French-language play. The Gazette declared: “L’Affaire Farhadi could be the vanguard of the revolution in French-language theatre.”   

The company is rooted in the community. Our most recent community project was Rights Here!, which involved community-engaged theatrical productions bringing together artists and the community, exploring issues related to human rights. The project was carried out in India and in Canada.

This year, we broke new ground by producing A Leaf in the Whirlwind, a new form of dance-theatre that combines story-telling, elements of theatre with a contemporary interpretation of Indian classical dance Bharatnatyam.

The company produces a range of plays reflecting diverse cultures, perspectives, themes, and aesthetics. These are united by our common concern with issues of social justice, cultural relevance, and artistic quality. We are proud to have produced works in English, French, Hindi, and Tamil, and we look forward to expanding our linguistic repertoire in the future.

About neworldtheatre
Officially incorporated in 1994, neworldtheatre is a professional, Vancouver-based theatre company which creates, develops, produces and tours new plays that reflect multiple facets of Canada's diverse populations. Created through a potent mixture of collective creation and traditional script development, neworldproductions investigate intersections between communities and peoples. Our work examines borders — between cultures, styles, and disciplines — and our
shows are hybrids of East and West, of the real and imaginary, and of story and cabaret.

We also work with numerous community-based groups, giving non-professional artists creative tools with which to examine and express their self-defined aspirations and concerns.

Philosophically, we are driven by a commitment to a broad, integrated and artistically cogent mix of diverse artists and arts-practice and a commitment to the artist's vision as the primary engine of artistic creation. We believe that Canada's artistic ecology is as culturally, economically and stylistically “diverse” as the country it emerges from. It is the inherent strengths of this ecology that we strive to reflect, and at the heart of all our work we believe in the triumph of compas-
sion over all forms of oppression.

Since 1992, Vancouver-based neworld has produced 17 original shows, including Adrift on the Nile, Ali and Ali and the Axes of Evil, Crime and Punishment, and Asylum of the Universe, and received 17 Jessie Richardson Awards, The Canada Council TYA Award and the Alcan Performing Arts Award. neworldtheatre productions tour across Canada and have been presented by major national festivals, including the PuSh Festival, the Vancouver International Children's Festival and the National Arts Centre's Magnetic North Theatre Festival. Cited by both the National Post and the Globe and Mail as one of the companies driving the nationally recognized renaissance in independent Vancouver theatre, neworld produces work that is passionate, entertaining and thought-provoking. We consistently reach audiences that cross traditional cultural and demographic boundaries.

Further Reading

The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice 
The Foundation was founded by members of Rachel Corrie's family and community in order to carry on the type of work that Rachel began and hoped to accomplish. The site features information about Rachel and an extensive reading list, as well as a very informative “myths and facts” sheet about Rachel's work and her death.
www.rachelcorriefoundation.org

Rachel's Words
Set up in response to the cancellation of the New York Theatre Workshop production of My Name Is Rachel Corrie, this site seeks to inform and make available the text of Rachel's own writings. It also features extensive links to other resources.
www.rachelswords.org

Democracy Now
The official site of this daily independent radio show. The searchable archives will take you to transcripts of radio interviews with Katherine Viner and representatives of the New York Theatre Workshop following the cancellation of their production, as well as radio interviews with Rachel Corrie's parents.
www.democracynow.org
“Let Me Fight My Monsters”
Katherine Viner's account of the creation of the play, from the Guardian UK, with lots of helpful background about Rachel Corrie. Includes a list of links to other useful sources.
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1454963,00.html