Controversy follows "Corrie" to Seattle stage

Like any proud parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie eagerly anticipate the local debut of a play about their daughter.

But the Corries are also bracing for backlash. In 2003, at age 23, their daughter Rachel died after being run over by an Israeli bulldozer while protesting treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. And her activism in the Middle East has become so controversial that just saying — or printing — her name can incite an argument.

No one is shouting yet at Seattle Repertory Theatre, where the West Coast debut of "My Name is Rachel Corrie" is now in previews and opens Wednesday. But quietly, offstage, the debate re-emerges with the production of the solo play based on Corrie's e-mails and diary entries, some of which express her political concerns.

It's a debate that mirrors the impassioned divisions between some Israelis and Palestinians, and between their American supporters and critics.

A hit in its 2005 London premiere, the play was derailed in New York and Toronto when 2006 productions were postponed and canceled, triggering claims of artistic censorship and intolerance.

The Rep run is going on as planned, but it reignites a larger debate over whether Corrie was a naïve but altruistic activist, a gullible tool of terrorists or a martyr for human rights.

A call for "balance"

The Rep is fielding many reactions to the play. One is a letter from the Va'ad HaRabanim of Greater Seattle, a consortium of Orthodox Jewish rabbis who say the play falsely casts Corrie's death "as a murder while demonizing Israel as an evil, inhumane power whose only purpose is to kill innocents."

The letter also urges the Rep to "balance" the play's depiction of the complex Gaza situation by airing other, more vigorously pro-Israel views.

In a coordinated effort by some Jewish groups, the Pacific Northwest Anti-Defamation League took an ad in the Rep's program (which is published by the Encore Media Group) defending Israel's Gaza policies as essential security measures. And an ad from Seattle's Jewish Federation ties the tragedy of Corrie's death to those of six Israeli women, also named Rachel, who were killed by Palestinian violence.

Members of these Jewish groups also handed out pro-Israel leaflets to Rep patrons as they entered the theater for last week's previews of "Rachel Corrie."

But the play has defenders here, too. Nada Elia, a Palestinian-American professor at Antioch University and member of the Palestine Solidarity Committee, says Corrie represents a "noble commitment" to "justice, peace and nonviolent resistance, even when one is not directly affected by the injustices one is working to end. ... "

Others hope the show will stir discussion inside an American Jewish community deeply divided over whether criticizing Israel holds that country accountable for its more controversial policies or plays into the hands of bigots and terrorists.

Eager for a "compassionate" open dialogue is Mercer Island psychologist Yaffa Maritz, co-founder of the interfaith peace group Find Common Ground.

The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Maritz is an Israel-bred "patriot" and frequent visitor to her native land. She says many American Jews especially "are afraid that there is only room for one story about this issue. They're afraid if Rachel's story is heard, then their story [will be seen as] wrong."

"A native daughter"

The Corries say they've also sought common ground, via their Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice and visits to Israel and Gaza.

The Olympia couple, who are not Jewish, say they have mourned in Israel with Jewish parents whose children died in Palestinian suicide-bombing attacks there. And they strongly deny Rachel was a terrorist or anti-Semitic.

Craig Corrie believes "My Name is Rachel Corrie" is a multifaceted portrait of his daughter that will resonate locally. "Bringing this play to the Northwest is very special for us. There's a lot about it that's very specific to the Northwest."

"This is about a native daughter of our area," concurs Seattle Rep artistic head David Esbjornson. "I wanted to do it because it has really wonderful observations, and some really beautiful language, and real heart. But the bigger motive is for us as a culture to engage in a dialogue. We have to open this subject up for discussion."

Death in Gaza

The roller-coaster response to "My Name is Rachel Corrie" can be traced to 2003, when Corrie went to the Gaza city of Rafah as a member of the International Solidarity Movement, a controversial Palestinian-led group that describes itself as a nonviolent organization committed to resisting Israel's occupation of Palestinian land.

While in Gaza, Corrie lived with a Palestinian family and protested Israel's bulldozing of Palestinian homes — a tactic Israel says is essential to rooting out terrorist tunnels.

In detailed e-mails home, Corrie expressed "disbelief and horror" over the poverty and other suffering among Palestinian refugees, and her belief that the U.S. shared responsibility for it. "I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world," she wrote, "and that we in fact, participate in it."

Corrie's death on March 16, 2003, during a demolition protest, provoked headlines worldwide. Details of the incident are still disputed: Israel ruled it an accident, while the Corries still press for an independent investigation.

Soon after Corrie's death, the Guardian, a liberal London newspaper, published some of her Gaza e-mails. Moved by her words, famed film and theater actor Alan Rickman proposed that the Royal Court Theatre, a noncommercial theater in London, stage a play based on her writing.

With the Corries' permission — and a sheaf of Rachel's diary entries and e-mails collected by her older sister, Sarah — Rickman and co-adaptor Katharine Viner (a Guardian editor) assembled the script for "My Name is Rachel Corrie."

A work for one actor (in Seattle, Marya Sea Kaminski, directed by Braden Abraham), the show draws from Rachel's Gaza e-mails but also her searching, whimsical diary jottings from her early youth: about her love of Northwest nature (salmon, mountains, trees), family relations and her budding idealism.

"Rachel was always writing," says Cindy Corrie. "And from the time she was little, she had her own unique way of looking at the world."

Troubles in U.S.

In London, the play won some raves and was such a hot ticket it went on to a commercial run in the West End.

There were no organized protests, says Viner, noting that art reflecting a range of political opinions is popular in England — and in Israel.

The Corries were delighted by the London success but steeled themselves for a different U.S. reaction. They've been stunned, says Corrie's mother, by the hate messages people send. One was "a toy bulldozer, with a note saying, 'I'm glad Rachel died.' "

But it was still a jolt when the New York Theatre Workshop indefinitely delayed its U.S. debut of "My Name is Rachel Corrie." The theater cited sensitivities in the Jewish community in an "edgy" period of escalating Israel-Palestine tensions.

Nobel playwright Harold Pinter and others angrily accused the theater of bending to pressure from hard-line supporters of Israel. Similar charges were lodged at Toronto's CanStage company, when it backed off producing "My Name is Rachel Corrie."

Last November, different producers mounted the play's New York premiere, to mixed, mostly lukewarm reviews. Drama critics praised Corrie's writing talent but faulted the script.

"I think after all the fuss, people came expecting something massive, or very political, and this play just isn't," Viner says. "What's controversial isn't the play, but Rachel herself."

In Seattle, "Rachel Corrie" is selling well. And the Rep has slated nine post-play forums, several more than usual. Among others, Maritz, Rabbi Daniel Weiner of Temple De Hirsch Sinai and Ed Mast of the Palestine Information Project will be part of the discussions.

But Rabbi Moshe Kletenik, head of Seattle's Bikur Cholim-Machzikay Hadath congregation and signer of the Va'ad HaRabanim protest letter, says no one from his group was invited to participate — a missed chance, in his view, to balance "a very one-sided, simplistic picture" of a complex issue.

Asked for comment, the Rep issued a written statement arguing that "to provide the venue or time for anyone who has a differing point of view to what a particular playwright puts forth in their work would be ... an overwhelming and impossible task."

Any U.S. theater presenting this minefield of a play will likely face similar demands. So far, the Rep is the only American regional company to stage it.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com