My Name Is Rachel Corrie
April 10, 2007 – 11:42 pmI went and saw the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie this evening with my mom. I wasn’t expecting much from it.
When Rachel Corrie was killed it horrified me; that’s why I was interested in seeing the play. I wanted to know something about her, something more than I’d gotten from the fairly feeble media coverage around her death.
Like I said, though, I wasn’t really expecting much from the play. Given that the script is compiled from the diaries of a woman in her young twenties, and given that she was political enough to travel to Gaza and stand around in front of IDF bulldozers, and given that the script was co-edited by a Famous Movie Star (Alan Rickman), I expected a shrill and self-indulgent anti-Israel screed. That wasn’t what it was at all.
She wrote beautifully, she was clever, she was funny. She reminded me of people I knew in college. She dedicated herself to doing real things to improve people’s lives. She travelled halfway around the world to put herself in danger on behalf of strangers, because she was worried about them. It’s a good play, and a fitting tribute.
Today would have been her twenty-eighth birthday.