ON March 16, 2003, a 23-year old American woman activist was crushed to death by a bulldozer while protecting a house to be demolished on the Gaza Strip.
The death of Rachel Corrie caused international outrage, and the differing accounts of the tragedy between other activists present and the Israeli Army are being discussed in court to this day.
But the character of Rachel Corrie that existed before she died will be brought to a Wellington stage.
My Name is Rachel Corrie hits BATS Theatre next week, and will see local actress Kate Prior addressing an audience with excerpts from Corrie’s diary. It’s the second time around for Prior.
She first performed the play in 2009 at Christchurch’s Court Theatre, which has since “gifted” the play rights to her.
Prior’s first stop is Wellington, her hometown, and then beyond.
“I initially connected with [Corrie’s] humour. She was a very funny and clever writer. She died in 2003, and a year later some of her writing was published in The Guardian,” Prior says. “[Harry Potter Actor] Alan Rickman saw the writing and decided to make it into a theatre piece. He started correspondence with the family, and Rachel’s sister typed up all the diary entries.”
Now, My Name is Rachel Corrie is performed throughout the world. To put on the production you need to get the permission of Corrie’s parents.
“We needed to get their signatures, which is a lovely thing because it’s an instant connection to Rachel,” Prior says.
Before tackling the play she read everything she could get her hands on about Palestine and Israel, including books by John Pilger and Robert Fisk.
“The first few days of rehearsal, we just sat down and watched endless documentaries,” says Prior. “The process for this has been very different in the sense that it’s direct address – I’m basically chatting to the audience. I learnt about how different every audience is, and you do have to talk to them like friends because most of the time Rachel was writing to herself.”
She admits that spending so much time on a person who died in horrible circumstances has been difficult.
“There were several points during rehearsal when we needed to just stop,” Prior says. “Many people say ‘there’s thousands of people dying and she was just one American girl’, but obviously her death was not in vain and the number of productions that have been put on are testimony to that.”
The worldwide performing of the play has also made true a quote from Corrie’s diary, “my soul is nomadic”.
“Her story has now been seen in so many places that her soul sort of was,” Prior says, and adds that being involved with My Name is Rachel Corrie has given her an awareness of protestors.
“There’s this dangerous stereotype we have of activism, that they’re these extreme people. This play has definitely increased my appreciation of someone with so much passion and action,” Prior says. “It’s given me a greater understanding of the [kind of] people who stand outside in the rain on Lambton Quay holding up a Palestinian flag.”
My Name is Rachel Corrie, BATS Theatre, April 8-24.