In the hands of Fineprint Theatre, My Name is Rachel Corrie is still the powerful piece of documentary theatre it has always been.
After her death in Gaza in 2003, Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner sifted through the writings of 23-year old Rachel Corrie. They edited her diary entries, emails and surroundings into a moving one-woman theatre show they called My Name is Rachel Corrie. It premiered at Royal Court Theatre, transferred to the West End in 2006 and is now being performed at Rosemary Branch Theatre by the talented Sophie Angelson and Fineprint Theatre.
This is a powerful piece of documentary theatre, not least because of its context. Watching the thoughts of a woman who died in a conflict that still rages is enough to keep this play in production. But the script for My Name is Rachel Corrie is also beautifully structured, varied and spirited.
Her thoughts ebb and flow from Angelson who, though she embodies that wholesome middle American look (all freshed faced and denim clad) in fact reveals a chain-smoking, messy, writer with no clear ambitions but plenty of heart and imagination. Angleson sits on an unmade bed as she rambles about the world according to Rachel, the way things should be or could be and the way things are. It's hopeful stuff and Angleson is superb at getting across that frustrated but upbeat energy.
She also does a good job of conveying Rachel's need to know more about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, but this is where I think the script is lacking. We never see Rachel at her lowest. She comes off as a wise innocent whose self-perceived white privilege failed her. Her moments of resentment and setbacks are never much more than perpetual disappointment.
That's of course a huge part of the sadness in this play. You're essentially listening to the thoughts of a dead girl who never did get to see all those changes. It's powerful from a human angle, but doesn't really explore the problems around human rights legislation or its broader political issues. But then that isn't necessarily a bad thing. This is an unashamedly one-sided piece that makes no big deal about considering the Israel side: the issue it attempts to address is what led a girl like Rachel to go to Gaza in the first place, and this it does very well.
The show at Rosemary Branch Theatre revolves around a great performance by Sophie Angelson, and is only really let down by a drab set. Corrie's bedroom is described in all its messy glory, full of stickers, posters and secondhand clothes, but we see little of this. When she moves to Gaza her bed is rolled away but there's not much that evokes the very different sounds and surroundings she would have experienced there.
I saw My Name is Rachel Corrie in 2006 but five years on, watching this new production, I'm in tears not at Corrie's descriptions of life in the Gaza Strip but the emails she receives from her parents. She writes to them from Rafah, and their replies reveal an earnest struggle to understand and a growing distance between them and the daughter they simply want safe at home.
My Name is Rachel Corrie plays in double bill with Lines at Rosemary Branch until 30th April.
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