My Name is Rachel Corrie – ZOO Southside

Rachel Corrie was an American who was killed in 2003 by the Israeli army. She stood in the path of an armoured bulldozer which was about to demolish a Palestinian house in Rafah, Gaza. At the time of her death Rachel, who was 23 years old, was working with other foreign nationals for the International Solidarity Movement.

‘My Name Is Rachel Corrie’ is based on her journals and emails. They were edited by the actor Alan Rickman, and the journalist Katharine Viner. Rickman also directed the premiere of the play at the Royal Court Theatre in 2005.

Rachel had youthful ambitions to be a writer, and this play shows that she was immensely talented. Her writing is powerful and moving, crackles with sparkling imagery and is often poetic. She started keeping a journal when she was a child. Reflecting on classroom rules in second grade, she wrote: “The only one I can remember now seems like it would be a good rule for life. ‘Everyone must feel safe’. Safe to be themselves, physically safe, safe to say what they think, just safe. That’s the best rule I can think of”.  

Much of the early writing is light and amusing. But Rachel says “I’ve got a fire in my belly”.  She feels very privileged, and is motivated to help others. As a student she is politically active in Olympia, Washington.

Then Rachel decides to join a small group of non-violent activists from several countries trying to prevent the demolition of civilian homes by the IDF (the Israeli army) during the Second Intifada.

When someone is killed on the Rafah/Egypt border, she and four others try to recover his body but they are forced to stop by Israeli soldiers firing warning shots, and told to collect the body later.

Rachel writes movingly of the plight of Palestinians as they are regularly shot at, and their homes and greenhouses are bulldozed, leaving them homeless. On March 13th 2003, just three days before she was killed, Rachel records the day’s events in her journal: a 12-year-old girl is shot; three nurses are injured by shooting in a hospital; houses are demolished, injuring 41 people; and eight families have to be evacuated from a damaged apartment building.

At first Rachel personally feels relatively safe as she thinks it unlikely that the Israeli army would shoot an unarmed American civilian, but later she suffers from nightmares, and tells her mother: “I’m having a hard time right now. Just feel sick to my stomach from being doted on, very sweetly, by people who are facing doom. …I can’t believe that something like this can happen in the world without a bigger outcry.…I’m really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature”.

Ceasefire Arts describes itself as a “predominantly Jewish team”. Given what is happening at the moment in Gaza and also the West Bank, this is a timely revival of the play, directed by Susan Worsfold. Gabriel Speechly is the Producer. Elizabeth Robbins is Stage Manager, also responsible for Lighting.

This is a one person show, and it’s a challenge for any actor to engage an audience for nearly 90 minutes. The way the play was staged did not help Sascha Shinder, the gifted actor who plays Rachel. She was confined to a stool. She sat on it most of the time, sometimes with her feet curled up on the seat of the stool. Occasionally she stood up. Once she turned round and kept her back to us. But basically she was limited to one tiny area of the stage. I think there is often too much stage movement. There is a great strength in stillness. But it is possible to be too static, particularly when there is just one person to engage the audience for an hour and a half.

Shinder would have benefited from more of a set, or at least a few basic props. The play consists entirely of writings so maybe a table with a journal and pen and a laptop. A few books perhaps. Some family photos. She could glance at her writings from time to time, and we could see her writing or typing.

Shinder has a lot of talent. However, her performance was sometimes too low key. This was particularly so during the first half of the play when she was sometimes rather softly spoken, and it was a strain to hear everything she said. It did not help that there was a lot of noise coming from the room above the studio – with loud music, singing, talking, and even ceiling vibrations.

I felt that Shinder was not always clear where her focus should be. She tended to avoid eye contact with the audience, looking past us or over our heads or up at the ceiling. I think it would have helped her if she had taken in the audience more, using more eye contact and thinking of us as her friends or confidants.

But Shinder, particularly in the second half of the play, does succeed in capturing the passion, commitment and  empathy of the young activist, and also her sense of humour, especially in her email exchanges with her witty father. The 70 seat studio theatre was less than half full, but there were laughs and chuckles in some of the lighter moments.

At the end of the play after Shinder had finished all the readings, she got a mobile phone out and played two recordings. One was a man’s voice explaining how Rachel died. Then there was a video of Rachel speaking, aged 10. Shinder quickly showed the audience the image of the young Rachel then put the phone down so the video could be played. The sound quality was poor and not very loud in both of these recordings. Anyone unfamiliar with the manner of Rachel’s death or who hadn’t seen the video of the young Rachel would have struggled to follow what was going on.

Couldn’t these two recordings have been played through the sound system? Better still would have been a projection on the back wall so we could have seen the videos.

Despite its flaws, I recommend this show about the remarkable Rachel Corrie.

’My Name is Rachel Corrie’ runs until 24th August.  Tickets available athttps://tickets.zoofestival.co.uk

Reviewer: Tom Scott

Reviewed: 9th August 2025

North West End UK Rating: