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Reaction continues to pour in (we're drowning here, actually) to our recent call-in on the play "My Name Is Rachel Corrie", as well as to BL's commentary on Weekend Edition Sunday

Subject: Outreach: discuss.
Dear Brian:
Thank you for readdressing this issue. I listened to it later on Friday because I had boycotted your show that morning.

I think that first of all, what education and outreach constitutes is misunderstood. My perception of it is a separate department specializing in educating the surrounding community with classes and workshops on theatre. They also work closely with the literary and dramaturgy staffs on study guides, usually for classes coming to see the show. The outreach component extends to expanding contact in the community beyond the standard subscriber base - i.e. low income families. NYTW, like most theatres in New York, does not have an Education and Outreach staff member, let alone a department. To refer to what they are doing with Rachel Corrie as "education and outreach" to me, is misleading and cynical.

I'm a theatre dramaturg and a great deal of what I do is write program notes, articles for the newsletter, give pre-show lectures and post show discussions. I have never thought of this work, though fun and rewarding, as education and outreach - it's mainly marketing where the point is to advertise the play, spark interest, and make the audiences feel included and like members of the theatre community. I don't mean to belittle this interaction, which I really enjoy and I have worked on plays where it has seemed very valuable to have some sort of dialogue after the show because the experience has been so powerful for the cast and the audience. But I've never seen the case where having experts diffuse the play afterward has been necessary- and certainly not worth postponing to the next season. Unless they're flying these people in from Israel, it shouldn't take that long to book them.

In terms of NYTW losing valuable patrons and fundraisers- I completely reject the idea offered by your caller that patrons should have any sway over a theatre's artistic choices. That is just wrong and dangerous. That leads to safe programming and a "giving the people what they want" ethos, which is not what non-profit theatre should ever aspire to, certainly not a theatre like New York Theatre Workshop. Theatres are fluid and they change with their leaders and times. Patrons and subscribers constantly leave for various reasons, be it financial or aesthetic and they get replaced by new ones. They are probably wreaking more financial damage on themselves by having a theatre dark for two months than programming a play that not all of their patrons approve of. I also think that NYTW does a tremendous disservice to their subscribers and patrons in thinking that they are neither smart nor loyal enough to go with them on this risk.

Of course everything I offer up here is speculation because NYTW has not been forthcoming at all with the reasons why they are not doing this play. Every time they speak in public they contradict themselves and sound just plain ignorant - i.e. Jim Nicola citing his source for Rachel Corrie being a member of Hamas as "the internet." I am so shocked by this behavior and really disappointed. I've always admired this theatre as they do some of the most theatrically daring and exciting work in New York. I'm even one of their script readers and I'm very proud of that. But I guess it is easier to get away with a modernized Hedda Gabler than a "politically incorrect" play, which whether or not you agree with its politics, is actually relevant and current.
Thank you for your time. Looking forward to Monday
Morning Politics.

-KB

Subject: Un-Named Sources

Brian, please! Manufacturing a sinister Jewish cabal without evidence? And what was your excuse? Well, people are talking about it. What people? Which Jewish donor withdrew his/her support? You've let the unsourced techniques of blogging poison your critical thinking.

Postponing the Rachel Corrie play was a dumb decision, but not an evil one, nor a conspiratorial one as you made it appear. Mention should be made too of the problems of subscription theaters. Those companies have to be sensitive to subscribers who shell out a lot of money in advance of the season. They rely on the artistic director's judgment. That's probably what made NYTW nervous. Not those hints of departing moneybags (with hook noses?) you put out there.

As to outreach, I know all about it. Sadly. As a sometime playwright, I was dragooned into conducting post-curtain Q&A's with my Jewish Repertory Theatre audience. The subscribers some of them -- wanted me to defend my portraying a Torah Jew as a murderer. Since when does everybody get a vote?
-AG

Subject: Preformance Politics?

Dear Brian,

If "Rachel Corrie" is not a political statement but "art" because it happens to be told on a stage, then when a priest endorses a candidate in a church sermon it must be religion and not politics!

The Rachel Corrie play is pure and obvious politics in sheeps' clothing.

-GJ

Subject: Preformance Art

I listened to your radio show, and I also attended the Rachel's Words event at the Riverside Church. I have to agree with Katherine Viner that it is first and foremost the quality of Rachel Corrie's words, but I can only say this after having attended the Riverside Church event. I had read a few of Rachel Corrie's emails after her death, and while they were well written, hearing them spoken on stage was a completely different experience. It was good theater. It wasn't just good political theater, and that was what surprised me. I didn't expect to find hearing Rachel Corrie's words spoken from a stage so compelling.

I was thinking about the evening the following day. What struck me was that even when Cindy Corrie, Rachel's mother, was reading her emails, I did not feel like I was participating in a "private" or "public" event but in theater. I think I went into the evening thinking that someone Rachel's age could not be that great a writer, but I have to admit I was wrong. There was something quite extraordinary about her words. I think it was the depth of emotional honesty in her prose. She was also highly self-reflective for a young woman her age. Her ability to reflect on her privilege as a white American whose citizenship was tied to what was occurring in Rafah did not take the form of self-flagulation. It was not "confessional," and I found that unusual. I teach at a university where liberal students are able to reflect on the social and economic conditions into which they are born. Often, however, that reflection rings superficial, because they have not seen much of the world.
That sense of worldliness is what you hear in Rachel's words, and it's a worldliness that comes from witnessing human suffering of a kind that most Americans do not know, and more importantly, are kept from hearing about.

Daniel Pearl did not leave a series of extraordinary emails, but even if he did, why should Katherine Viner be the one to write about them? Why doesn't someone else with an interest in Daniel Pearl's prose do that production? Why does Katherine Viner have to be politically "outed"? What's at stake in that gesture?

What I really enjoyed about your interview with Viner was her laughter at the absurdity of the idea of a theater whose ultimate goal is "to foster community dialogue." A weak version of the theater, and a weak educational institution at once. That's the "theater" that the NYTW has to offer? Yawn.

-DG

Subject: Sorry we couldn't get it to the air...

Why are some in the Jewish community, donors, and ex-producers of this play are so devoted to maintaining an untarnished public perception of Israel and Jewish over sensitivities even at the expense of Rachel Corrie's words being heard?

The NY Times article, smearing Rachel Corrie's name and her death, clouded contextualization, and inflammatory cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad are all red herrings. Drawing attention away from the central issue of a play-recitation being denied. What is there to fear?

When are we as Jews going to let go of the inevitable public perception of 'Can't Do No Wrong' image of Israel? But The Play Must Go On!

Please air my thoughts. Thank you.

-BC

Subject: Extended Experts from a Letter to NPR about the BL's commentary that ran on Sunday's Morning Edition.

NPR broadcast racist propaganda this morning by airing Brian Lehrer's extended analysis of the NYC controversy caused by Jewish leaders pressuring the Downtown Theatre Workshop to abort its the scheduled production of a play that spotlights Israeli government terrorism. Mr Lehrer is an intelligent and liberal commentator about almost everything except Israel, where his usual progressive values seem to be trumped by some unspoken connection and bigotry.

Mr Lehrer's abused your listeners to make the dishonest claim that the events of Rachel's death are "hotly contested", whereas, in fact, all the eye-witnesses except the perpetrators testify that the Israeli army saw her in her orange vest and crushed her to death deliberately. Does Mr Lehrer usually argue that the fact that murderers--such as the Nazi leaders at Nuremberg--often claim innocence makes the responsibility for their crimes "hotly contested"--or is this his special slant when it concerns Israel?

Mr Lehrer went on to say that the circumstances of the decision to abort the production of the play are "hotly contested". But in fact, the directors of the Theatre Workshop have said all along that their decision to abort the play was a reponse to local Jewish leaders, which was exactly what has been reported repeatedly in The New York Times without any objection from the Jews involved. Isn't it obvious that Mr Lehrer keeps pretending that obvious facts are "hotly contested" just to whip up enough dust so that the American public will not see clearly how Jews work behind the scenes to prevent America from learning the truth about Israel's evil and racist terrorism against the native Palestinian people whose lands Israel occupies in vicious defiance of international law?

Mr Lehrer then dragged out an absurd red herring about how controversial plays should not be put on in New York City without "community outreach". I've been attending New York theatre since the 1940s and I can assure that that's not how its done here. Has Mr Lehrer himself ever broadcast any previous special pleadings about how plays controversial to anybody but the Jews need "community outreach" before they can be produced here? Just last week, Mr Lehrer interviewed John Patrick Shanley, whose "Doubt", currently on Broaday, is deeply offensive to many New York City Catholics, but Mr Lehrer never suggested that those producers should have held off putting on the play until they had done "community outreach" to the Catholic population. Has Mr Lehrer ever demanded prior restraint and outreach except when the people whose interests will be challenged are proIsrael Jews?

Mr Lehrer concluded with the insulting and dishonest claim that the dramatists who put together "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" were interested not in art or illumination but just in "picking a fight" and causing criticism of "proIsrael Jews". I had thought such paranoid whining beneath Mr Lehrer.
When the artist Chris Ofili displayed a painting of Mary, the mother of Christ, festooned in elephant dung, did Mr Lehrer make broadcasts calling for outreach or claiming that Mr Ofili was more interested in outraging Christians than in art? Why does Mr Lehrer apply different standards for Christians and Jews?

Don't you agree that NPR has a profound resonsibility to present forthright and fair-minded analysis, and to be especially careful to counteract any bigoted commentary that betrays the crucial interests of the American people to a foreign power? While Jewish suppression of the play about Rachel Corrie and your airing of Mr Lehrer's bigoted proIsrael analysis of the situation may seem like small matters, they are in fact the tip of a treacherous iceberg that threatens to do enormous covert harm to our country. After all, as Christ taught, "No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other".

The hard truth is that major American media programmatically distort the news to present all relevant issues in the best possible light for Israel, even though that slanting has meant betraying America. Absurd, you say, Israel is America's closest friend. That's certainly what The New York Times and its like want us to believe, but when you look through their propaganda to the facts, it becomes clear that with a friend like Israel America has no need of enemies..

Before the United States was propagandized into providing the political, financial, and military support on which Israel's existence has depended, America enjoyed good relations with all the oil-producing countries of southwest Asia that are so important to our own national well-being. As a consequence of Israel's misuse of our support to perrpetrate military conquest and apartheid exploitation of native peoples, the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims throughout the world have been transformed into enemies of America. Israel's evil acts as a rogue state--secretly manufacturing unsanctioned nuclear weapons, stealing land by military brutality, flouting U.N. resolutions and international law, imposing genocidal apartheid on the conquered native peoples--have caused enormous harm to America, including the 1970s' oil embargo, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the rise of Islamic fanaticism, and the flaring up of antiAmericanism throughout the world.

For America, the essential importance of Rachel Corrie is that she was an American patriot, who, by sacrificing her life to resist and to expose Israel as a terrorist state, has issued a wake-up call that America desperately needs to hear. "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" needs to be produced now in New York and throughout the United States, because only by arousing our citizenry to the evil misuse Israel has made of our generous support can Ms Corrie's heroism guide America to force Israel to make full reparations for the horrors it has committed, and thereby start to bring peace and justice to the Middle East, honor to ourselves, and an end to terrorism.

-MG