GMontag's Journal: Play Review: "My Name is Pancake"

Looks like TNR had another good article recently. Found it over here. The actual name of the production is "My Name is Rachel Corrie". Must admit, I certainly did not expect this to be good or honest, but it seems like both.

If the linkage below does not work, see if a useable one comes up here.

The staged legacy of Rachel Corrie.
Girlish Figure
Why Rachel Corrie is not the new Anne Frank
by James Kirchick

For a one-person show to sustain itself, its subject must either be humorous (think Elaine Stritch), possess some sort of intellectual severity (Spalding Gray), or both (Hal Holbrooke as Mark Twain). Rachel Corrie did not have any of these. Corrie's bouts of moral indignation overshadow a few moments of humor, which are nothing more than girlish flightiness anyway. She was a simpleton when it came to world politics, and yet the play sanctifies her as some sort of sage witness to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In part, due to the epistolary basis of "My Name is Rachel Corrie," comparisons have been made to "The Diary of Anne Frank." This is partly true. The villains in both plays are heard from but, for the most part, not seen; they are nevertheless omnipresent and threatening. But the comparison ends there: With Corrie, the bad guys are Israelis; with Frank, they are Nazis--hardly equal purveyors of horror. And Anne Frank was a probing character whose blameless observations of fascist Europe demonstrated the cruelty of a period in which children were perfunctorily murdered. Rachel Corrie was a know-it-all who deliberately placed herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. What's more, there is an issue of moral culpability among antagonists. Obviously, Frank's murderers had it. But Corrie died, accidentally, after giving intellectual (and actual) cover to those who are, essentially, the heirs of Frank's killers.

Another good account can be found here.

Rachel Corrie, the 'martyr' who keeps on serving.

Mr. Kirchick makes an informative note about the video of Corrie at ten years old, that runs at the end of the play: Corrie at 23 was just like Corrie at ten. And that is what's so tragic and so telling about those who wish to change the world without really trying to understand it.

Unstated, perhaps unknowingly, this is some good advice to parents too. Try talking to your children about the world in reality, not in utopian theory. It will serve them well and they may avoid the error of trying to bullfight a bulldozer.

A Technorati search reveals this gem on the "jihadist news service" called "Global War": Zionazis Cancel Freedom of Speech on (World) Stage. To some, every play cancellation is a Zionist conspiracy.