Posted on 02/28/2006 10:20:26 AM PST by West Coast Conservative
A potential Off Broadway production of "My Name Is Rachel Corrie," an acclaimed solo show about an American demonstrator killed by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to stop the destruction of a Palestinian home, has been postponed because of concerns about the show's political content.
The production, a hit at the Royal Court Theater in London last year, had been tentatively scheduled to start performances at the New York Theater Workshop in the East Village on March 22. But yesterday, James C. Nicola, the artistic director of the workshop, said he had decided to postpone the show after polling local Jewish religious and community leaders as to their feelings about the work.
"The uniform answer we got was that the fantasy that we could present the work of this writer simply as a work of art without appearing to take a position was just that, a fantasy," he said.
In particular, the recent electoral upset by Hamas, the militant Palestinian group, and the sickness of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, had made "this community very defensive and very edgy," Mr. Nicola said, "and that seemed reasonable to me."
The play, which received strong reviews in London, follows the story of Rachel Corrie, an idealistic American demonstrator and Palestinian-rights activist who was crushed to death in March 2003 in the Gaza Strip.
The play was written by the actor Alan Rickman, who directed the piece, and Katherine Viner, a journalist at The Guardian newspaper in London, who pieced together snippets of Ms. Corrie's journals and e-mail messages to create the script. And while the show had not been formally announced, Ms. Viner said yesterday that she and Mr. Rickman had already bought plane tickets to see the production at the workshop.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
A sequel has been proposed, to be titled "Dozer II: Change the Oil."
Ok, who has the Bart Simpson at the chaulkboard picture?
I dozed off halfway through the play. I'm sure Rickman is crushed by the delay. I expect he believes it will be a smashing success.
"Instead, we'll be running a revival of the hit musical "Cartoons for Muhamed."
Thank you. You da man.
Would you mind if I copied that?
Keep the main actor spouting the same (doubtless) far-left, kumbaya nonsense as written. Just add some actors portraying Palestinians coming out of a trap door behind her, all carrying explosives, AK-47s, rocket launchers, etc. Near the climax of some impassioned paean to "peace," have the actor playing Corrie hear a sound behind her, turn around and nonchalantly replace a dropped suicide bomb belt on an overburdened Pali's load, and turn back to the audience continuing her plea for "peace" without missing a beat.
Alan Rickman's a typical, middle-class British socialist married to a Labour politician, I believe. The British middle classes truly dislike Americans and Jews.
I know Mr. Rickman was questioned as to why he didn't write a play called "My Name is Rachel Levy," an Israeli victim of a suicide bomber. Unfortunately, the article I read did not print his reply. Perhaps he didn't have one.
Was living in Olympia some years back.Mid 80s.Was dating a student who attended Evergreen college at the time.I had a daughter about 11yrs old,and a son about 6 yrs old.She very much wanted us to attend an open house,so I figured it would be something different,so we went.WHOA!Girls kissing girls,guys doing the same.All the while my children were asking me questions I couldnt answer.Daddy why are they doing that stuff?I lasted 10 minutes and then we headed for the door.I learned all I needed to know about that college.So did my children!It took weeks to get those images out of my head!
Looks like the Rachel Corrie story has been BULLDOZED for a while.
We're all going to hell for the comments on this thread ;-D
Rachel Corrie ended her life for nothing. Zero, zip, nada. This play is designed to stir the pot.
"Last year, the city council passed a resolution declaring Olympia a nuclear free zone. The city benefits financially from the Navy and the Army because of base facilities but they don't care, what moonbats on the council."
LOL That sounds more like New Zealand and Melbourne or Tasmania in Australia than the United States. In Australia these policies are called "politics of the warm inner glow" and not surprisingly it is the hardleft from the left wing of the Australian Labor Party or the Green Party which support it. And if I'm correct outside parts of Melbourne and the whole Tasmania, almost no one supports them.
Regretfully, such policies have bipartisan support here in New Zealand. This is why New Zealand often makes even the New York Slimes read like moderate conservative publications.
Even though Thaler was a British citizen, born in London, where her grandparents still live, her death has never been mentioned in a British newspaper.
Rachel Corrie, on the other hand, an American radical who died in 2003 while acting as a human shield during an Israeli anti-terror operation in Gaza, has been widely featured in the British press. According to the Guardian website, she has been written about or referred to on 57 separate occasions in the Guardian alone, including three articles the Saturday before last.
The cult of Rachel Corrie doesn't stop there. Last week the play, My Name is Rachel Corrie, reopened at the larger downstairs auditorium at the Royal Court Theatre (a venue which the New York Times recently described as 'the most important theatre in Europe'). It previously played to sold-out audiences at the upstairs theatre when it opened in April. (It is very rare to revive a play so quickly.)
On 1 November the 'Cantata concert for Rachel Corrie' - co-sponsored by the Arts Council - has its world premiere at the Hackney Empire.
But Rachel Thaler, unlike Rachel Corrie, was Jewish. And unlike Corrie, Jewish victims of Middle East violence have not become a cause célèbre in Britain. This lack of response is all the more disturbing at a time when an increasing number of British Jews feel that there has been a sharp rise in anti-Semitism.
Thaler is by no means the only Jewish Rachel whose violent death has been entirely ignored by the British media. Other victims of the Intifada include Rachel Levy (aged 17, blown up in a grocery store), Rachel Levi (19, shot while waiting for the bus), Rachel Gavish (killed with her husband, son and father while at home celebrating a Passover meal), Rachel Charhi (blown up while sitting in a Tel Aviv cafe, leaving three young children), Rachel Shabo (murdered with her three sons aged 5, 13 and 16 while at home) and Rachel Kol, 53, who worked at a Jerusalem hospital and was killed with her husband in a Palestinian terrorist attack in July a few days after the London bombs.
Corrie's death was undoubtedly tragic but, unlike the death of these other Rachels, it was almost certainly an accident. She was killed when she was hit by an Israeli army bulldozer she was trying to stop from demolishing a structure suspected of concealing tunnels used for smuggling weapons."
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=19961
The reviews said this performance was kind of flat .....
Please, with my compliments.
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