Sumud Ensemble presents My Name is Rachel Corrie It’s 2003 and Rachel Corrie wants to dance around to Pat Benatar, have boyfriends, and make comics for her co-workers. But she also wants the horrors in Gaza to stop.
Edited by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner, My Name Is Rachel Corrie is taken from journal entries and emails Rachel wrote from age 12. However, the play focusses on her final months, during which she joined the International Solidarity Movement to support Palestinian nonviolent resistance to occupation. She was tragically martyred in Gaza at 23 years old.
Rachel is a fiery, quirky, and keenly attuned witness. Of ferns, salmon and daily life in Gaza. She paints pictures in our minds that, unlike the images we see in the news, are full of colour, character and tenderness.
Rachel’s words remind us that 22 years later, as Gaza is being obliterated, the struggle remains the same. But so does the power of words, of love, and of holding onto our humanity despite the horrors.
