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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

NY Theatre Workshop interested in Jew-bashing play

From NYT:
Three years after New York Theater Workshop drew protests for canceling “My Name Is Rachel Corrie,” a play sympathetic to Palestinians, it is considering mounting a production of a new piece by Caryl Churchill, “Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza,” that at times contains images of heartless Israelis.

A spokesman for New York Theater Workshop — known for provocative work like Tony Kushner’s play “Homebody/Kabul” and the original production of the musical “Rent” — said on Tuesday that the workshop was “interested in the play” and was now considering whether a production could be mounted this season.

According to other people familiar with the discussions at the workshop, its artistic director, James C. Nicola, is pursuing the play while mindful of his bruising experience in 2006 with “My Name Is Rachel Corrie.”
The entire text of the play and my comments here; other comments here.

Notice that the article implies that the Rachel Corrie play was controversial because it is "sympathetic to Palestinians" rather than because it is slanderous towards Israelis. The implication is that critics of these sorts of "artistic" ventures simply hate Palestinian Arabs rather than have any legitimate problems with mindless and decontextualized Israel-bashing.

(h/t Tamzen via email)