I attended the reading of "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" at the nexStage Theater earlier this month and want to thank the director, Kathy Wygle, and her staff for having the courage to present such a controversial event. I was wrong to assume that people in our community were wise enough and mature enough to understand and appreciate the experience.
While your reporter was not at the reading, he nevertheless gave a one-sided opinion of what happened at the event and why it happened. Here is how I saw it transpire. Prior to the presentation, the audience was told that questions would be allowed of the parents of Rachel Corrie, but please make them brief. The first person to ask questions did not respect that request. Instead, he ranted and raved about how the Corries and their daughter were being used by the Palestinians for propaganda purposes. Which certainly was true.
He would not shut up and continued with accusational diatribe against the parents and their daughter. He was asked again to make his comments brief by me and others. He refused. He and his supporters (a very few) continued shouting until it was decided to stop the Q&A because of the turmoil. The first person to ask a question, in my opinion, was very, very rude, ill-mannered, as were those screaming in his defense. One of them, with a crazed look on his face, looked at me and shouted, "You shut up" when I asked the questioner to, "Please make it brief" as we were requested.
I never did get to ask my question and neither did many others as a result of those that preferred to disrupt the presentation. Shame on those few people that want to prevent us from educating ourselves in this very important issue.
Ron Moore
Hailey
Editor's note: The play reading was presented on two consecutive nights. The reporter who wrote the story attended one of the readings but not both.
