Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Chi ha paura di Rachel?

Si avvicina il 5to anniversario dell'assassinio di una che pensava che
si poteva combattere l'oppressione senza usare vioenza.   Il suo
messaggio continua a sembrare piu' controverso di qualche cartone
contro Maometto.
http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2008/03/07/whos_afraid_of_rachel_corrie/
Who's afraid of 'Rachel Corrie'?
After controversy elsewhere, New Rep stages play about Israeli-
Palestinian conflict
By Christopher Wallenberg, Globe Correspondent  |  March 7, 2008
At first blush, a play about an idealistic young American woman
finding her voice and purpose in life while fighting for social
justice might not seem like the stuff of incendiary political theater.
Set the action in the Gaza Strip amid one of the most intractable
conflicts in the world, add in some passionate polemics in support of
the marginalized people of Palestine and against the Israeli
occupation, and you have a recipe for one of the most radioactive
plays of the past decade.
"My Name Is Rachel Corrie," which receives its New England premiere at
New Repertory Theatre starting tomorrow, is based on the e-mails,
letters, and journals of a 23-year-old activist from Olympia, Wash.,
who was crushed in 2003 by an Israeli Army bulldozer in Gaza while
trying to block the destruction of a Palestinian home. The play
enjoyed a wildly successful world premiere at the Royal Court Theatre
in London in 2005 and then moved to the West End, but it sparked a
storm of controversy when New York Theatre Workshop chose to
"indefinitely postpone" its planned US premiere in 2006. The theater's
artistic director cited concerns expressed about the play by leaders
in the local Jewish community.
News of the cancellation triggered criticism from all corners of the
theater world, with prominent playwrights such as Harold Pinter and
Tony Kushner and actress Vanessa Redgrave speaking out vehemently
against the decision.
The Workshop tried to backtrack, arguing that it needed more time to
prepare audiences and "contextualize" the play with post-show
discussions and even a companion piece. But the equivocations simply
fanned an already raging inferno. When all was said and done, an
important New York institution, known for challenging audiences with
provocative and experimental fare, had undermined its reputation.
The controversy raised a swarm of troubling questions. Why were the
words of an American activist protesting in Palestine deemed so
inflammatory? Why couldn't the play stand on its own, without
"contextualizing" it with other points of view? And in an age when
full-frontal nudity, explicit depictions of sex and violence, and
barrages of F-bombs onstage barely raise an eyebrow, was the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict one of the few taboo subjects remaining for
theatergoers, many of whom have strong views on issues related to
Israel?
"Rachel Corrie" was eventually produced off-Broadway in the fall of
2006, and it has since been coopted by factions on both sides of the
Israeli-Palestinian debate as a symbol to rally around. Corrie herself
has been praised as a heroic martyr and denounced as a misguided, ill-
informed naïf. Following complaints, planned productions in Miami and
Toronto were shelved. When the Contemporary American Theater Festival
in West Virginia mounted "Rachel Corrie" last summer, a board member
resigned in protest.
New Repertory Theatre has faced its own set of challenges in mounting
the play, whose text was shaped and edited by actor Alan Rickman and
British journalist Katharine Viner. Stacy Fischer will star as Corrie.
The theater had originally planned to pair "My Name Is Rachel Corrie"
with the one-act "To Pay the Price," about the late Israeli Army hero
Jonathan "Yoni" Netanyahu. But after the Netanyahu family heard of the
plans, it asked that "To Pay the Price" be pulled from the lineup,
deeming the two plays incompatible.
Forging ahead, New Rep replaced "Price" with the solo show "Pieces,"
written and performed by an Israeli-American, Zohar Tirosh, about her
experience serving in the Israeli military in the mid-1990s, when
peace seemed like a real possibility. The company is also surrounding
the two works - staged in its 90-seat black-box space - with related
panel discussions, talkbacks, readings, and films, including the Oscar-
nominated documentary "Promises."
The New Rep's producing artistic director, Rick Lombardo, says that
this mini-festival on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not part of
an effort to deflect criticism of "Rachel Corrie," but is instead the
result of nine months of planning and dialogue that he and his staff
engaged in with various communities, from the Arab Anti-Defamation
League to the American Civil Liberties Union to the Jewish Community
Relations Council.
"Everybody wants to fixate on one play. But for us, it's never been
about one play," he says. "Our goal was to have Rachel's voice be one
of two. But the more we've explored the topic, the more our festival
has grown to include a diversity of voices. We want to explore how a
historical and cultural event like the Israeli-Palestinian situation
spurs artists to create and spurs community dialogue."
While New Rep has fielded about a dozen angry phone calls, e-mails,
and letters from both sides of the fence, Lombardo says no pressure
has been applied from board members or major donors to cancel "Rachel
Corrie" or "Pieces."
All the works in the program, he says, come from the perspective of
finding ways to create peace, dialogue, and healing: "We're taking
something that could've been divisive, that could've been seen as
overly provocative to certain members of our community who feel
passionately about this, and instead opened up the topic of
conversation in a way that I think is ultimately going to have really
positive outcomes - especially for folks who initially might have felt
hurt and damaged by the production of either play."
Still, some observers wonder about the effort to temper the messages
of "Rachel Corrie" with other viewpoints.
"I think there's a real danger in expecting balance out of art," says
Cindy Corrie, Rachel's mother. "I just don't think art works that way.
People create art from their experience and their perspective, and
then we get to respond to it. And then maybe someone creates other art
that has another perspective. . . . In striving for balance, I think
there's a danger in it becoming a kind of censorship, a control over
how we communicate and talk about things."
Both she and Rachel's father, Craig, insist that they're speaking in
general terms and not making a judgment about New Rep's decision to
contextualize the play. "I do think both plays need their own space.
These are pieces of art - entities unto themselves," Craig Corrie
says. Yet he acknowledges that the messages of the two plays could
reinforce and complement each other, rather than contradict.
Playwright Christopher Shinn ("Dying City"), who was an outspoken
critic of New York Theatre Workshop's decision to cancel "Rachel
Corrie," says it does a disservice to artists to try to moderate their
words by showing alternative perspectives.
"Audiences should be mature enough to see a strongly presented point
of view, and if they don't agree with it, to maintain their
disagreement with it, perhaps even be galvanized by it into better
articulating their objections," Shinn says. "There's something
disturbingly politically correct about the idea that any strong point
of view has to be balanced by an opposing point of view - that we
should never present one strong point of view in isolation, but to
always make sure that it's balanced and contextualized."
Gideon Lester, acting artistic director of the American Repertory
Theatre, says that his company looked into presenting "Rachel Corrie"
as part of a series of plays on the Middle East that it was
considering for last season. The idea never came to fruition, he says,
but not because the company was skittish about "Rachel Corrie."
"I don't think theaters can be afraid of provocation, as long as we do
it responsibly and not simply to rattle cages," Lester says. "There
are many aspects of our life on this planet that need deep
investigation. Theaters are public places, and public life should be
under scrutiny in theater. So it's important that we don't shy away
from difficult issues or simply program to please."
When it comes to incendiary political issues, Lombardo, Lester, and
others agree that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains one of the
most potent of our time, and therefore one of the most divisive topics
a theater company can tackle.
"What's interesting about the conflict and ultimately the source of
what's challenging about achieving peace is that there's not just an A
point of view and a B point of view, and then you seek compromise
between them. There's a thousand points of view," Lombardo says. "It's
both the beauty of the problem and the horrifying complexity of the
problem. And as an artist and as a producer, I've felt a
responsibility to find a way to represent the diversity of
perspectives."
Interestingly, "Rachel Corrie" has met with less protest in other
parts of the country. A Seattle Repertory Theatre production had an
extended run last fall despite leafleting from Jewish groups, and the
play has been performed in such quintessentially Middle American
locales as Des Moines, Omaha, and Albuquerque. Later this month, an
Arabic-language production will open in Haifa, Israel, and then travel
to Nazareth, Ramallah, Jaffa, and Jerusalem.
"I think that the brouhaha surrounding the play is probably greater
than the play itself warrants," Lester says. Indeed, the tumult has
threatened to drown out the passionate words of Corrie herself -
something her parents and supporters are desperate to avoid. The
message of "My Name is Rachel Corrie," they contend, isn't simply
about a young woman's quest to illuminate the suffering of the
Palestinian people.
"The first questions that Rachel asks [in the play] are: Who am I? How
do I relate to the world? What are my values? When I develop my
values, how do I act on them? That's what people are mulling around
after they see the play," Craig Corrie says. "I think what Rachel
demands is that you act on those values and beliefs - no matter what
they are."
Cindy Corrie echoes her husband's sentiment: "I think the play is
about the power of individuals to make a difference. And I hope that
people go away from the play believing that they can make a
difference, just like Rachel did."

 Si avvicina il 5to anniversario dell'assassinio di una
di cui in effetti si parla pochissimo
http://www.zionismontheweb.org/Rachel_Corrie.htm

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Quindi tutte le rachel di cui si scrive sono state uccise da
terroristi, giusto?

 contro Maometto.
Che il Torrieri sia pure un *COGLIONE* anti-islamico?
-Stefano