By Elyse Sommer

The brouhaha stirred up when New York Theatre Workshop indefinitely postponed this docudrama about a bright, literate and passionate young American activist for Palestinian rights who was killed in 2003 by an Israeli Army bulldozer is not hurting ticket sales at the Minetta Lane Theater where it's now opened for a limited run. Advance sales have been brisk and the house was packed on the night I attended.

When there was an unexplained fifteen minute delay for the show to begin, it set my companion to wondering if there was some sort of threat requiring special safety measures before the show could begin. He need not have worried. The play went on and will no doubt continue to do so without incident for its limited run.

The New York Theatre Workshop's skittish actions to the contrary, this is not an especially incindiary political play and those who disagree with its point of view are unlkely to regard it provocative enough to mount protests or undertake any threatening actions.

While we are living at a time when political theater is more relevant and eagerly received than during all too rare periods of relative tranquility, the problem with most political dramas is that they tend to be one sided and attract an audience on the same page as the creative team. Thus the people who flocked to Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo's Guantanamo didn't need anyone to make them angry about Guantánamo Bay. The success of David Hare's Stuff Happens was not just Hare's compelling writing but the play's resonance with audiences bristling with contempt for the Bush administration.

My Name is Rachel Corrie, being a solo show, is much more intimate and personal than either of those also fact-based works. However, it is as unabashedly one-sided. Unfortunately, I was less impressed with its artfulness and and dramatic potency than my British colleagues, both excellent and smart writers. Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner have done a creditable job of using Corrie's own writings to create a very human and at times powerful portrait of a young idealist who died too young and unnecessarily. Megan Dodds is obviously committed to this role which she created in London but I didn't find her performance as consistently compelling as did Charlotte Loveridge and Brian Clover. The staging, which takes us from Rachel's bedroom to Gaza where her efforts to protect Palestinian families from losing their homes ended disastrously, is quite effective, but the needed broader approach to the issues gets lost in the effort to make this a real play. Sure it's heartbreaking to watch this idealistic young girl being swept into a conflict whose roots predate her birth — and to see her die before she can get a fuller grasp of the horrible situation she's gotten caught up in. Ultimately, however, and call me unfeeling for saying this, Rachel comes off as a young woman who was obviously bright and precociously humanistic — but she's no Anne Frank.

I'm putting these notes on top of our London critics' reviews and leave it to you to make up your own mind about the play. As you can see from the production notes below, the only major change is the venue and that Bree Elrod takes over for Megan Dodd at the matinee performances.

MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE
Adapted by Katharine Viner & Alan Rickman from writings by Rachel Corrie
Directed by Rickman
Starring Megan Dodds; Bree Elrod (Sat & Sun matinees)
Design: Hildegarde Bechtler
Lighting: Johanna Town
Sound: Emma Laxton
Running Time: 90 minutes without intermission
Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane, (6th /Macdougal Sts), 212/ 307-4100
From Octobr 5 to November 19, 2006--Extended to December 30th; opening October 15th
Tue — Sat at 8pm; Sat & Sun at 3pm; Sun at 7pm
Tickets: $45 — $65