better late...?

my friend peter has been after me to write a review of ‘my name is rachel corrie’ playing at the tarragon theatre until june 22. we both saw a preview of it on the same night and he has an interesting review posted on his blog.

besides making excuses about busy I am with other things, I have also been avoiding committing to an online avowal of my feelings on the show for…other reasons. one of the major things holding me back is that im not sure how I felt about it. it’s great that it is (finally) being shown in toronto and that in an environment relatively free of discussion regarding the ongoing occupation of Palestine by Israel, that folks can begin to empathize through a character like rachel corrie. as for the show itself, I thought the writers did a nice job of using rachel’s own words to create a character that was somewhat loveable but ultimately fittingly naïve for the political situation which she thrust herself into.

what is most shocking about rachel’s death is the somewhat anticlimactic-ness of it all. she’s alive, feeling depressed, sad and confused about her role in rafah and in the world, and then suddenly she’s dead…run over by an Israel Defense Force (IDF) bulldozer whose driver claims not to have seen her. of course, this sort of thing is relatively anti-climactic. in an environment where lives are lost to violence on a day to day basis, the loss of this one life in an act of heroism doesn’t quite garner the same amount of attention that some of us have been raised to believe should be bequeathed to a martyr.

the death of rachel corrie was incredibly tragic and the show demonstrates that Palestinian solidarity struggles, even when fronted by middle class white American kids, register as a minor blip against a military force that has over 160, 000 active military personnel backed by a budget of over $18 million dollars. however, what troubles me about the show (is it the show or the way i think the audience interprets it?) is the relative disconnect from the ongoing policy, not just of occupation, but of apartheid, that is being employed by Israel. this has little to do with a young girls hopes and dreams about saving the world. though she is obviously sympathetic to the Palestinians, Rachel’s exhaustion and desperation she faces in Palestine feeds into a discourse that continues to see the violence as part of the ongoing (read, ‘never ending’) arab-israeli ‘conflict’. this line of thinking establishes both parties as equal in the ‘conflict’ and erases the material realities of the economic and political backing of the IDF. it further ignores Israel’s heightened attacks on Palestinians and their livelihoods through the erection of the ‘security’ wall (deemed in violation of international law by the International Court of Justice in 2004), Israeli only roads, and the institutionalization of check points that block Palestinians from getting to work, to their families, to their schools and general freedom of mobility. these practices and others like them are well documented in court documents, public debates, and political transcripts from Canada, the United States and Israel.

overall the show itself is entertaining, slow at the beginning, but picking up with some very nice work done by actor bethany jillard. but I think what is really tragic about ‘my name is rachel corrie’ is the fundamentally desperate grasp to empathize in some way to the ‘arab-israeli conflict’. that audiences in canada and the united states must have some way ‘in’ to possibly comprehend the seemingly vast complexities of the situation and that the tragic death of this young girl should suit the bill. what else could her death and the subsequent mounting of this show be about? In my opinion, the writing is on the wall…I’m not sure how long we will have to wait to be shamed by our hindsight, maybe twenty years, maybe one hundred but in time, much like the case of South Africa, future generations will look back at the current practices of Israel and be able to say with confidence, ‘apartheid’.

I said earlier that rachel’s death in the show seems anticlimactic …and I think it is.
And maybe that’s the point.

Props to Theatre Panik for mounting My Name Is Rachel Corrie.

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