Monday, October 23, 2006

Rachel Boring

If you want to hear someone walking on eggshells, listen to Roma Torre’s review of My Name is Rachel Corrie when NY1 replays On Stage tonight. While Torre tries not to address the political issues of the play in a way that would alienate her presumably left-leaning audience, it is clear in her review she found the production lacking:

“it is a very small work, depicting the limited perspective of a young woman.”

“incomplete.”

“her diary entries emerge rather helter-skelter.”

“there is too much reliance on Corrie’s own words which don’t always tie together cohesively, and not enough context.”

“so many blanks in the script.”

“it feels so incomplete. We know there’s so much that’s missing in her world view. And focusing the work on her unleavened political beliefs yields a disservice to Ms. Corrie.”

“needs far more fleshing out”

“politics were the least interesting part of her story”

And in her post-review chit-chat with the host: “I don’t know if people are going to get their money’s worth in this one.”

Not exactly a rave. In the accompanying footage we hear Megan Dodds, as Corrie, turning the earnest nobility up to eleven, soliloquizing: “I can’t cool boiling waters in Russia. I can’t be Picasso. I can’t be Jesus. I can’t save the planet single-handedly.” Imagine sitting through two hours or so of that.

Torre does however, uncritical buy into some of the Corrie propaganda when she says: “She [Corrie] was especially disturbed by the brutal Israeli practice of bulldozing Palestinian homes to the ground.” No mention of why Israel would do such a thing. Of course, those homes were concealing tunnels used to smuggle arms for terrorist attacks on innocent Israeli citizens. Corrie’s organization ISM had a long history of coordinating with Palestinian terrorist organizations. As Torre said in her review, a little context here would be helpful.