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View Full Version : 'Rachel Corrie play banned in New York'



rubiesand
06-07-2006, 12:09 AM
Katharine Viner
Wednesday March 1, 2006
The Guardian

The flights for cast and crew had been booked; the production schedule delivered; the press announcement drafted and approved; tickets advertised on the internet. The Royal Court production of My Name Is Rachel Corrie, the play I co-edited with Alan Rickman, was transferring next month to the New York Theatre Workshop, home of the groundbreaking musical Rent, following two sellout runs in London and several awards.

We always thought that it was a piece of work that needed to be seen in the US. Created from the journals and emails of American activist Rachel Corrie, telling of her journey from her adolescent life in Seattle, Washington, to her death under a bulldozer in Gaza at the age of 23, we considered it, in a sense, to be an American story, which would have a particular relevance for audiences in Rachel's home country. After all, she had made her journey to the Middle East in order "to meet the people who are on the receiving end of our [American] tax dollars", and she was a killed by a US-made bulldozer.

But last week the New York Theatre Workshop cancelled the production - or, in their words, "postponed it indefinitely". The political climate, we were told, had changed dramatically since the play was booked. As James Nicola, the theatre's artistic director, said yesterday: "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 in the recent Palestinian elections, we had a very edgy situation." Rachel was to be censored for political reasons.

It makes you wonder. If a young, middle-class, scrupulously fair-minded, and dead, American woman, whose superb writing about her job as a mental health worker, ex-boyfriends, troublesome parents, struggle to find out who she wanted to be, and how she found that by travelling to Gaza and discovering the shocking conditions under which the Palestinians live - if a voice like this cannot be heard on a New York stage, what hope is there for anyone else? The non-American, the non-white, the non-dead, the oppressed?



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catmando
06-07-2006, 12:45 AM
This should not surprise anyone who follows American life and culture. The play would hurt Israel, our partner-in-crime. It cannot be allowed to be shown in this country anywhere anytime, as long as we are allies with Israel, and I don't see that changing anytime soon, if ever.

Freedom of speech is no longer sacrosanct here.
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Vishnu
06-07-2006, 12:05 PM
Would a "My name is Daniel Wultz"(sp?) play be allowed? Possibly... we will never know for sure... but wasn't he an American death killed by Palestinians?
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Muezzin
06-07-2006, 01:11 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by catmando
Freedom of speech is no longer sacrosanct here.
I was about to make a crack about freedom of speech, but you beat me to it.

Personally, I don't think freedom of speech has ever been sacrosanct, in any nation, but that's a rant for another thread.
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Templar Knight
06-07-2006, 01:45 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by catmando
This should not surprise anyone who follows American life and culture. The play would hurt Israel, our partner-in-crime. It cannot be allowed to be shown in this country anywhere anytime, as long as we are allies with Israel, and I don't see that changing anytime soon, if ever.

Freedom of speech is no longer sacrosanct here.
The government didn't shut it down it was a business choice. Freedom of speech does not ensure an audience. Besides Corrie was an idiot for playing chicken with a militarized bulldozer with poor visibility.
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rubiesand
06-07-2006, 01:57 PM
The play has met with critical acclaim in London. New York is missing out on something special.
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KAding
06-07-2006, 10:56 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Muezzin
I was about to make a crack about freedom of speech, but you beat me to it.

Personally, I don't think freedom of speech has ever been sacrosanct, in any nation, but that's a rant for another thread.
Huh? What does this have to do with freedom of speech? Noone banned anything. The theater owners apparently didn't want to run it anymore, for whatever reason, probably motivated first and foremost by their own business interests?

If they can find another theater or producer they are back on track.
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north_malaysian
06-08-2006, 04:28 AM
They should stage it in Malaysia - it'll be very crowded.
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imaad_udeen
06-08-2006, 04:41 AM
It wasn't banned. This is not a free speech issue.

Move along, nothing to see here.
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