STAGE REVIEW: My Name Is Rachel Corrie @ Alphabetti Theatre, Newcastle (10.10.24)

Image by Von Fox

Theatre’s power to evoke empathy should never be underestimated. My Name Is Rachel Corrie is an exceptionally moving play about an American activist who was killed in Palestine in 2003 by an IDF bulldozer. The seminal production is being brought to North East audiences for the first time this month by Alphabetti Theatre and Wet Arts Ltd.

The show, originally edited by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner, draws on Rachel’s own diaries and emails to create a powerful testimony of her world view while witnessing the horrors of the Israeli occupation.  

The minimalist set design was well crafted with various microphones placed around the stage, allowing for the protagonist to voice different sides of her character. As someone who remembers this period well, (I visited Palestine seven months before Rachel’s death as part of a similar human rights brigade) I was angered when she was depicted in the media as merely the victim of a tragic accident. This work refreshingly provides a three-dimensional portrayal of who she was; brave, idealistic, striving to help others while still being a young woman who wanted to dance to Pat Benatar, have boyfriends and make comics for coworkers.  

Her memories were honoured by a captivating performance by incredible up-and-coming local actor, Rebecca Glendinning-Laycock (Angela, Hope is a Four-Letter Word) whose magnetic stage presence was lifted by her flawless American accent.   

The show’s biggest impact was the insight it gives into what it’s like for a Westerner to see up close the horrific violence, humiliation and check point surveillance that Palestinians have endured on a day-to-day basis for decades.   

The timely staging of this work is significant. Rachel Corrie was the first Westerner to be killed by the Israeli army. Time has shown she wasn’t the last as international reporters, activists and aid workers have met their demise at the hands of the militarized state. However, the human cost to Palestinians dwarves this (over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the last year alone, homes destroyed, whole cities turned to rubble in what many are calling a genocide).    

Alphabetti is mounting this production to hold space for audiences to have an urgent conversation about the ongoing crisis in Gaza. In doing so, they encourage us to not look the other way, using theatre as one of many tactics to show solidarity and expose a regime that is being enabled by Western leaders and our own inaction and complicity.  

As the show’s director Ryan Hay acknowledges: “Rachel Corrie’s testimony stands to remind us that we are inextricably connected to our international siblings: that our choices, words and actions have an impact on the lives of countless people we may never even meet.” 

My Name is Rachel Corrie is at Alphabetti Theatre, Newcastle until Saturday 26^th October.