Published: April 3, 2008

Midtown’s Drama Book Shop is arguably the New York theater community’s most popular resource.  Matthew Maguire, chaiman of Fordham College at Lincoln Center’s (FCLC) theatre department Matthew Maguire said, “The staff is highly educated in the theatre. They are always helpful. I recommend the Drama Book Shop on all my syllabi. It has always carried requested plays.”

Minimal contact with the store’s staff or an introductory level theatre course vindicates the store’s role as a virtual Library of Congress for drama and perennial footnote to theatre course reading lists in New York. The store’s aim is to carry every play in print, or have them otherwise available upon request, with one notable exception.

“My Name is Rachel Corrie” was published two years ago and tells the story of  Rachel Corrie , who died on March 16, 2003 in Rafah, Palestine. She was run over by an Israeli army bulldozer while acting as a human shield to protect Palestinian houses from demolition, along with fellow members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Prior to the 2005 Gaza withdrawal, the Israeli military justified housing demolitions in Rafah as a way to prevent smuggling through underground tunnels to Egypt.

The play, drawn from the personal writings of the American peace activist killed by the Israeli army in 2003, has been person non grata at this Garment District staple. Unlike “The Story of Kufur Shamma” or “Perdition,” plays which criticize Zionism or offer a Palestinian narrative, “My Name is Rachel Corrie” is still in print—the ownership simply disagrees with the content of the play.

“That’s a shame,” Maguire said. “The plight of the Palestinian people under occupation deserves the attention of the world community. Censorship is always counterproductive.”

Maguire’s disappointment with the Drama Bookshop echoes the kind shown by Tony Kushner, Harold Pinter, Maya Angelou, Howard Zinn and many others in arts and academia who have condemned the attempts to silence this play during its rather short lifetime.

A Comedy of Errors.

One clearly discovers the confusion and shame among the staff at the store upon requesting the play. One staffer, Marcus, was unfamiliar with the play and equally baffled by his inability to find it on the shelves or in the database. In his annoyance, he remarked upon the store’s completeness in selection and, almost ominously, its aversion to censorship. Only when Marcus approached a senior staffer did the situation become clear, albeit slowly. The unnamed senior staffer did his best to placate me away to other possible retailers of the play. Marcus however, proved to be too inquisitive and mischievous for the ruse.

“Is it possible that Ms. Seleen deems it unreadable?” referring to one of the two store owners.

“Yeah…” his colleague responded, letting the vowel hang so as to avoid suspicion rather than confirm it.

Marcus responds with his British “hmmm,” which has the effect of being more mocking than the American counterpart. After I had given a synopsis of the play to both men, only one of whom actually appeared to need it, Marcus suggested, “If this play has an anti-Israel slant, then there might be some self-censorship if the owner is pro-Israel.”

“Yeah…”

Upon a subsequent visit, store manager Matt Love clearly and apologetically confirmed that store owners Allen L. Hubby and Rozanne Seleen had decided to censor the play.

Hubby commented on the matter during an email exchange, “I too am no fan of censorship, but don’t you agree that if the owner of a business feels that an item is morally objectionable, they should not be compelled to make it available?”

A Polemic, Wrapped in a Controversy, Wrapped in a Box.

It is hard to imagine how some staffers at the Drama Book Shop were unfamiliar with “My Name is Rachel Corrie.” The play enjoyed a two-month run at the Minetta Lane Theater in the fall of 2006 after the New York Theater Workshop had effectively canceled its U.S. premiere seven months earlier, creating a torrent in the theatre world. The play already had two sold-out runs in London’s Royal Court Theater and received several awards, as the play’s co-editor and Guardian editor, Katharine Viner, indicated in a March 1 Los Angeles Times article that outed the controversy. In place of the aborted U.S. premiere, that spring the play was moved to the Playhouse Theater in London’s West End, supplemented by some 70 readings of Corrie’s writings in cafés and small theaters around the world.

Once known as the intrepid home of “Rent” and Kushner’s “Homeboy/Kabul,” the New York Theater Workshop had canceled the original opening after artistic director James Nicola consulted Jewish and other community leaders, according to The New York Times and The Nation. Although most plane tickets had already been booked to bring the play over from England, the Theater Workshop wanted time to organize post-show supplements to contextualize the play, as it had done with “Homeboy/Kabul.” During a “Democracy Now” debate, Nicola and managing editor Linda Moffet contended that they never “canceled” the play nor postponed it “indefinitely” and maintained that they found the play “inspiring.”

In the same program, Viner, who co-edited Rachel’s letters, emails and journal entries for the play, along with Hollywood actor Alan Rickman, upheld that works of art should stand on their own. However, given that the Royal Court’s production included similar post-performance discussions, Viner’s real point of concern appears to be that of consultation. Nicola and Moffet claimed to have been spooked by the massive smear campaign that exists against Corrie (Moffet cited a Mother Jones article on Corrie that was later shown in Counterpunch to be largely drawn from questionable far-right and, in one case, homophobic sources). However, the directors admitted that they never consulted Viner, who is likely the most informed journalist on Corrie and her representations in the media, nor any Palestinian groups. Concerning the latter oversight, Najla Said, the artistic director of Nibras, an Arab-American theater in New York, said in The Nation, “We’re not even ‘other’ enough to be ‘other.’ We’re not the political issue that anyone thinks is worth talking about.”

The controversy has its ironic echoes in recent history. In 1989, theater company al-Hakawati’s “The Story of Kufur Shamma,” about a Palestinian who returns to his village after 40 years, was abruptly canceled by New York’s Public Theater. A few years earlier, the production of Jim Allen’s “Perdition,” a play about a Hungarian Zionist who collaborated with the Nazis, was canceled by the Royal Court Theater one day before its preview.

It is unclear to what extent “My Name is Rachel Corrie” is being censored in New York or elsewhere. It can be purchased directly though either of the play’s two publishers, Theater Communications Group and Dramatist Play Service. It is also available at larger stores in the area such as Shakespeare & Company and Barnes & Noble. Midtown’s Theater Circle store does not carry it and attests that it does not place special orders.

Ann Petter, who runs the Web site “Rachel’s Words,” summed up that to date there have been 25 theater productions worldwide of “My Name is Rachel Corrie” and four cancellations.