My Name is Rachel Corrie – meeting Kate Prior
By Karin O’Donnell
I recently had the pleasure of meeting Kate Prior, who takes the part of Rachel Corrie in the compelling play My Name is Rachel Corrie. Kate is friendly and articulate, and enthusiastic about her latest work. She hails from Wellington and was thrilled to get the part of Rachel Corrie, saying that she’d wanted to do it for a long time.
1. Rachel Corrie’s story is both inspirational and tragic. It must be challenging to play someone who was a real person.
It is quite daunting. I am conscious of the fact that Rachel Corrie was a real person. I found her book a comfort. I read the original work, which has been edited for theatrical production (by actor Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner, deputy editor of The Guardian). I spent time researching who she was, and there’s a clip on YouTube where Rachel is speaking. Also last year I read her book “Let Me Stand Alone”. I let go of the idea of trying to impersonate someone, and Lara (Macgregor) was on the same page… The first part of the play is set in Olympia, Washington, where Rachel grew up. She was interested in natural landscaping and the environment – it was so much part of her.
2. What kind of person do you think she was?
Rachel Corrie encapsulated so much of the artist. She was a dancer, she was a prolific writer, she did drawings, jokey drawings. Writing was the way she made sense of the world. At home her writing was more florid, more creative. Afterwards, in Palestine, she was documenting what she was seeing. Her perspective had shifted and she didn’t want to embellish anything she was seeing. The play is all about her work and her writing. Her writing drove this piece. Theatre has been created out of her emails and her writing. Her writing has a drive to it – there’s a message that had to be sent back home. In Palestine her notebook was a sort of comfort. She was documenting things, writing for herself. There’s a lot of descriptive stuff.
3. How does it feel doing a one-woman play?
One-woman plays can be hard. At drama school we had to present a 20-minute long piece, doing our own writing. For My Name is Rachel Corrie, the script is an hour and half. It’s a marathon for an actor and you need stamina. It’s been great learning for me as an actor – doing a one-woman play highlights all your foibles. When you’re in a play with other actors, you bounce energy off them and you can temper your performance, but when you’re on your own it’s like a conversation with yourself.
4. What’s it been like working with Lara Macgregor, who directed My Name is Rachel Corrie?
Lara’s been great. It’s been quite collaborative and we were on the same page from the start. That’s quite a gift. We’ve had four weeks to put it all together.
5. Was it difficult to get the rights to stage the play in New Zealand?
The play premiered in the UK in 2005, but there were no rights released until it had been performed on the US stage, which happened in 2006. There is a personal connection in that the Corrie family vets each production.
6. How did you get the part?
I had wanted to work at The Court Theatre, and I had read the script for My Name is Rachel Corrie a few years ago. I was doing some readings at the Circa Theatre in Wellington, and Lara was there. She rang me a few weeks later and invited me to audition. I had wanted to do the so badly, and about a month after the audition Lara rang to say I had the part.
7. Anything else you’d like to say about Rachel Corrie?
Rachel had a calm relationship with the idea of death. She thought about death, reconciled herself with the idea of it. She was fearless in the situation she found herself in. Protecting those people and caring for them were greater than her fear of death. Rachel had a strong sense of community from the time she was young, and transferred this when she went to Palestine. There is now the Rachel Corrie Foundation and the International Solidarity Movement. You can read about them online.
• My Name is Rachel Corrie runs at The Forge at The Court Theatre until 27 June 2009. To find out more or to book online for this fascinating production, go to www.courttheatre.org.nz.
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