Review: My Name Is Rachel Corrie

Amelia Sargisson (photo credit: Daniel Di Marco)

The Thinnest Ice
Person or symbol?
by Gregory W. Bunker

My Name is Rachel Corrie is a play based on the activist life and death of a 23-year old, idealistic West Coast American student: Corrie was killed supporting Palestinians after an Israeli bulldozer ran her over. Two years later in 2005, Corrie’s story was translated to stage by Katherine Viner (deputy editor of The Guardian) and Alan Rickman (the Severus Snape of Hogwarts fame, among many other film and theatre roles).

The script draws heavily on Corrie’s journals and correspondence, which makes it both personal and with a clear pro-Palestinian bias—the play has not been without controversy. This production belies its activist intent in some heavy-handed and distracting ways. The interruption of Corrie’s mother’s voice at irregular, unexpected times, for example, seemed jarring and too consciously deliberate as a device to remind the audience of the play’s inspiration. It also seemed altogether unnecessary as the superb Amelia Sargisson so entertainingly demonstrated her ability to imitate and interact with her lonely self, even pretending to be her father at times. (Her re-enactment of an awkward encounter with a high school crush was priceless.)