The “political climate” in the US takes another victim:
A New York theatre company has put off plans to stage a play about an American activist killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza because of the current “political climate” - a decision the play’s British director, Alan Rickman, denounced yesterday as “censorship”.
James Nicola, the artistic director of the New York Theatre Workshop, said it had never formally announced it would be staging the play, My Name is Rachel Corrie, but it had been considering staging it in March.
“In our pre-production planning and our talking around and listening in our communities in New York, what we heard was that after Ariel Sharon’s illness and the election of Hamas, we had a very edgy situation,” Mr Nicola said.
“We found that our plan to present a work of art would be seen as us taking a stand in a political conflict, that we didn’t want to take.”
When Mr Nicola talks about “listening in our communities”, one presumes he means the Zionist lobby and the Jewish community. For them, of course, this play is a hot-bed of anti-Semitic rhetoric.
I heard about this today and thought it really sad.
So much for freedom of expression when the theatre management is too afraid to show what woudl have been a poignant piece.
And a play that has been performed around the world, won awards etc…
The Wikipedia article on Rachel Corrie contains all the Zionist talking points.
I am sad too, it could have been a good laugh!
Is that your mother calling for you Capain?
I think she’s just made a fresh batch of puppy juice for you.
I believe the theatre company believed it would take too severe a financial loss. I also thought freedom of speech also involved the right not to have to listen such speech, and the right not to have to pay for any one elses speech.
Progressive_Atheist Mar 1st, 2006 at 10:54 am
“The Wikipedia article on Rachel Corrie contains all the Zionist talking points.”
I have also noticed a distinct pro-Israel bias on Wikipedia. Normally a good unbiased source of unless you ask for information on the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.
I’m, waiting to see the new production on Arik The Desert Warrior.
Apparently the whole play there’s this fat guy in a bed with a drip in him. The audience gets to shout obcenities and throw trash. I’d pay to see that, but I’d want the original guy playing himself.
Another of your less that lucid days Chris. What areo you rambling on about freedom of speehch for? Where did it say that all New Yorkers woud be forced to attand the play?
Freedom of speech means allowing the play to continue, not having he right to shut it down.
Fnancial loss? Whayt is it with you and Captain? You two seem to read an article and cime up with scenarios that are off the plant.
The production received critical acclaim and won awards. Did you even bother to read the article?
Here is a quote:
“As James Nicola, the theatre’s artistic director, said yesterday: “In our pre-production planning and our talking around and listening in our communities in New York, what we heard was that after Ariel Sharon’s illness and the election of Hamas in the recent Palestinian elections, we had a very edgy situation.” Rachel was to be censored for political reasons.
It makes you wonder. ”
It was a political descision. Period.
But more importantly, this quote sums up the smear campaign made agisnt the play by peopel who had never even seen it:
“I was particularly touched by a young Jewish New Yorker, from an Orthodox family, who said that he had been nervous about coming to see My Name Is Rachel Corrie, because he had been told that both she and it were viciously anti-Israel. But he had been powerfully moved by Rachel’s words and realised that he had, to his alarm, been dangerously misled.”
Chris, I am surprised you and Captian aren;t ashamed of the depths those who claim to uphold you your ideology will sink to.
Leave your petty insults at home. Censureship is a function of Government, not private individuals. No one censured the play. It appears that a financial loss is all that would actually force a theatre not to run a play.
Smear campaign? I wonder why anyone would want to see a play about a woman’s possible suicide because she worried about the possibility of being pregnant. I believe there is a picture on the Internet showing the true nature of Rachel Corrie.
http://lindasog.com/mt/archives/2005/03/rachel_corrie_r.html
Rachel Corrie, an American college student from Olympia, Washington, was a pro-Palestinian activist and member of the International Solidarity Movement. She worked with Palestinian children in Gaza. She felt for their poverty and their suffering. She also helped teach them how to hate America and how to hate Israel. On February 15, 2003, at a rally in Rafah, surrounded by Palestinian children, Rachel Corrie burned an American flag, her face torn with hatred.
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=9603
It’s a time-honored tradition for the talented team of Cox and Forkum to provide the official illustration for the LGF Robert Fisk Award for Idiotarian of the Year (Fiskie for short), and they’ve come through in fine form to honor this year’s winner: Rachel Corrie.
Perhaps if they ran it as a comedy, they would do better business.
thanks chris, got it loud and clear now,
i thought you were a hateful small-minded bigot before, but gladly you have confirmed in fine style,
i reckon you’d have a whale of a time with your like minders over at little green footballs,
lovely people,
heres a few of the comments congratulating the talented team of Cox and Forkum for giving rachel corrie the Idiotarian of the Year award and also a british activist dying after being shot by the IDF
absolutely sad people.
and yes chris, i am insulting you, and i shall exact revenge upon you as well,
i shall learn more while your mind narrows,
i shall love and help more while you hate and become bitter,
i shall leave my children things of value, while you leave yours poison,
ps. sorry ant
Leave your petty insults at home. Since the play is a work of fiction, based on the playwrite’s feelings of what he thinks happened, I was showing how others feel about these same events.
The playwrites believes thre was something heroic about her while the majority believe their was something moronic about her.
There are still many unanswered questions about this possible suicide.
Chris,
What facts do you have to support “It appears that a financial loss is all that would actually force a theatre not to run a play.”?
As for petty insults. Go to hell you idiot. Your fellow lunatic, Captain suggested that a play about Rachel Corrie would be amusing. Maybe you woudl prefer a broadway musical abtou the holocaust.
Chris,
You fact checker extraordinaire,
“There are still many unanswered questions about this possible suicide”
Apart from a partisan inquiry, any facts you could share on how the trailor baking up over her was part of her suicide attampt?
But I think that the play would have had a flat repsonse from audiences. You cant just bulldoze your politics through the population and expect it will be a runaway success.
I am glad that you find it offensive to rejoice at someone’s death. You are implicitly condemning the palestinian reactions to every Jewish death that occurs.
You say you were a nuclear scientist but cannot extend your position beyond such phrases as “go to hell you idiot”? Maybe you wore a lab coat and got cups of tea for people or maybe you carried their files, but you are not educated.
Captain,
JHow do you knwo there would have been fl;at reposnse from teh audienes? You aren Chris sem to be onf the belief tha the play was a failure wating to happen, in spite of receiving critical acclaim and awards.
Here is a quote you shodul consider:
“Anyone who sees the play, or reads it, realises that this is no piece of alienating agitprop. One night in London, a group of American students came to a performance and mobbed us afterwards, thrilled that they had seen themselves on stage, and who they might, in a different life, have become. Another night, an Israeli couple, members of the rightwing Likud party, on holiday in Britain, were similarly impressed. “The play wasn’t against Israel, it was against violence,” they told Cindy Corrie, Rachel’s mother.”
Captain Clueless, you pathetic little boy. rather than accept common sense, you are resorting oinsinuating that I was come guy walknign aroudn in a lab coat playing with test tubes. I gave you ample explanation of what you should know abotu nuclear proliferation. Your posts are rpeatedl;y bereft of facts and al you can do is makei some insiautino that my Egineering degree belies my edutation.
Of course, if you were not attacking my education, you woudl liekyl insist that education is proof of nothing,seeing as many nazi’s were highyl eductaed also. am I right?
Leave your petty insults at home. Theatres routinely do not produce plays, in the most part, if they believe they will lose money. Being politically incorrect sells seats, so it couldn’t be just because it was a hot potato.
So it had to be financial. If the play was agianst violence, then they must have shown Corrie dancing while burning the american flag.
Corrie’s death sparked controversy and led to international media coverage, in part because she was an American, and in part because of the highly politicized nature of the conflict itself.
Capt. Jacob Dallal, a spokesman for the Israeli army, called Corrie’s death a “regrettable accident” and said that she and the other ISM activists were “a group of protesters who were acting very irresponsibly, putting everyone in danger — the Palestinians, themselves and our forces — by intentionally placing themselves in a combat zone.”
A Hamas spokesman was, however, somewhat more callous in his assessement. “‘Her death serves me more than it served her,’ said one activist at a Hamas funeral yesterday. ‘…Her death will bring more attention than the other 2,000 martyrs.’” Making of a Martyr by Sandra Jordan, Guardian Newspapers
Or perhaps they had read this and decided that any positive recreation of the events that led to Corrie’s possible suicide was not worth the effort:
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
“My Name is Rachel Corrie,” a new play based on the writings of the young American radical who was accidentally killed during an anti-Israeli demonstration in Gaza in 2003, opened in April 2005 at London’s prestigious Royal Court, a venue named by the New York Times as “the most important theatre in Europe.” In October, it reopened again in near record time, at the same theatre. In November the “Cantata concert for Rachel Corrie” – co-sponsored by the UK government Arts Council – had its world premiere at another London theatre. Lincoln Center in New York has expressed interest to the Royal Court in staging the play, as have dozens of schools and universities. And that the play’s co-director was “Harry Potter” and “Die Hard” star Alan Rickman only served to add a touch of Hollywood glamour to the cult of Rachel Corrie.
But other Rachels have lost their lives as well – Jewish victims of the Intifada. Does anyone remember them? In Britain, where the play is being staged, how many people even know the name of Rachel Thaler, a British citizen who was murdered by a suicide bomber in Israel at the age of 16?
“Not a single British journalist has ever interviewed me or mentioned Rachel’s death,” her mother Ginette Thaler told me three and a half years after her murder. Below, an article I wrote for the weekly British magazine, The Spectator, explores these phenomena and also marks the first time Rachel Thaler’s name has been mentioned in the mainstream British media. Earlier, in April, I wrote anther piece on “The Forgotten Rachels” for the Jerusalem Post, to mark the play’s initial staging.
– Tom Gross
Chris,
So in fact the idea that the play was not financially viable is your theory, not a fact at all.
“Theatres routinely do not produce plays, in the most part, if they believe they will lose money. success Fukuyama might enjoy following the release of his upcoming book?”
You also seen to have a very hard time readin gquotes so let me help you.
“In our pre-production planning and our talking around and listening in our communities in New York, what we heard was that after Ariel Sharon’s illness and the election of Hamas, we had a very edgy situation,” Mr Nicola said.
Want me to read it again for you? It did nto say anythign about financial concernes bu tthat the illness of sharon and the Hamas election were a concern.
Furthermore, if indeed there were concerns about financial vilbility, then there would bw no suggestion abotu postponing he play.
“He said he had suggested a postponement until next year.”
if the play is not regarded as fiancially vialbel today, then what is to make it viable next year?
You see how flawed and baseless your arguments are when you invent them based on your desired interpretation?
Leave your petty insults at home.
It appears that, based on the flawed premise, their community refused to financially support the play, hence their decision not to go forward with the project. Perhaps Rickman needs a lesson in capitalism before crying foul.
You can read it as many times as you’d like. It appears to quote the reason why most will not go to see it.
No ticket sales = no money. Simple economics.