The death of Rachel Corrie is a chilling reminder of the tragedy of war, and the fatal fate many non-military people have encountered over the years.
The death of Rachel Corrie is a chilling reminder of the tragedy of war, and the fatal fate many non-military people have encountered over the years. In 2003, as part of the International Solidarity Movement, 23-year-old Corrie ventured to the Gaza region as a peace activist. Three months after her arrival, she was killed when a bulldozer crushed her while she was stood in front of a Palestinian home in attempt to protect it from demolition.
Performed by Hannah Norris with direction by Daniel Clarke, My Name is Rachel Corrie is a one-person show about the short life of Rachel Corrie. The play was compiled and edited by actor Alan Rickman and deputy editor of the Guardian, Katharine Viner. “This play is all taken from her journals, her emails and her diaries, and has been compiled into a script,” explains Norris, who recently won the Best Female Performance award for her portrayal of Corrie. “The first half sort of tracks her life in Olympia in Washington, U.S.A. and we get to know the person that she was; things that she dreamt about and believed in. The second half is when she arrives in Jerusalem and heads into Gaza.”
Corrie’s written words over the course of her life, from personal emails to family to diary entries to memoirs of her time in Gaza, are little clues that have been strung together to present a portrait of this brave young woman.
“Rachel is a writer and while she was in Gaza, she was constantly emailing home to her mom with the hope that things were going to get published in their local newspaper. That didn’t happen; the local newspaper didn’t pick it up,” says Norris. However, when she was killed, the Guardian newspaper picked up her emails and published them posthumously over a series of weeks. This caught the attention of Rickman, who out of the interest of telling her story began interviewing Corrie’s friends and family with Viner to research what would become the backbone of My Name is Rachel Corrie.
The structure of the play sees Norris in constant engagement with the audience via direct conversation. By doing so, Rachel Corrie is, so to speak, given a real face, allowing the audience to get to know her, and feel an intimate connection with the late activist.
“It doesn’t pretend to be anything but Rachel’s account of the things that she saw. The people that she spent time with in Gaza and how the things she saw affected her,” explains Norris. “There are several poems, there are ways in which she teases her my mom and dad through different emails, and all those relationships and life is explored in the play, as well as her activism.”
From a young age, Corrie had always been a compassionate individual, whether it was collecting money for various charities or working with mental health patients and drug addicts within her local community. Though she initially wanted to be an artist and a writer, she got politically involved with global injustice issues during her time at university, which eventually led to her time in the Palestinian region. “She was someone that was compassionate and wanted to fight injustice and that was the place where she felt that was happening.”
Currently, Corrie’s parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie are in the midst of bringing a civil lawsuit against the Israeli soldier who controlled the bulldozer that killed Rachel. “When Rachel was killed, it was in the news. But a week later, America invaded Iraq. So, as much as America had promised the family that they would have a thorough investigation into her death, that didn’t really ever happen.”
Corrie’s case is one in thousands of peace activism that has ended in tragedy. In 2004, British student and activist, Thomas Hurndall was shot in the head and killed in the Gaza Strip by a sniper of the Israel Defense Forces. More recently, a reported 10 activists on board the Freedom Flotilla, who were bringing in aid supplies were attacked and killed. But despite the heavy subject matter, My Name is Rachel Corrie is about peace.
“I don’t think she thought she was going to be killed,” says Norris. “It was a stand off. The kind of person that she was, to me, it was just that situation – she couldn’t not keep standing there. She was defending this house of this family that she knew, and she was standing up for them, literally.”
My Name Is Rachel Corrie opens on November 4 and plays until Sunday November 14 at fortyfivedownstairs. Tickets are $20-$30 and available from 9662 9966 or fortyfivedownstairs.com.
