ON March 16, 2003, Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American, was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza when she was trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home. After her death, letters that Rachel had written home were published in a newspaper. When British actor Alan Rickman read them, he was struck by the power of her writing and the dramatic potential of the material. Here was a story that the world needed to hear.
The story was about Rachel, a young student, a budding artist and writer, who left her home in Olympia, Washington, to join the International Solidarity Movement in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The story was told so eloquently and poignantly in the words of the victim that Rickman decided to get hold of the letters and diaries and rework them into a play titled My Name is Rachel Corrie – which opens tonight at the Market’s Barney Simon Theatre and runs until November 16.
Actress Kate Liquorish (The Girl in the Yellow Dress and The Miser) landed the part after tough auditions (starting with one on Skype because director Jaqueline Domisse was in Cape Town and had a bee in her bonnet about the Joburg-based Kate).
She was right, the play which debuted at the 2012 Grahamstown National Festival has garnered two Fleur du Cap nominations for Best Actress and Best Solo Performance.
Once she won the part, Liquorish had to come to grips with the text. It’s a 90-minute solo show and she had to adopt an American accent. With British parents, she believed she was quite comfortable with accents. But she was surprised that it was so tough to keep it up and to sustain it for such a length of time, night after night. Her director, fortunately aware of the way the mind works, pushed her to speak or go through the whole play every day. “Even when we were working on a particular part,” she says. It meant that the text became part of her DNA.
“It’s a mammoth piece but we worked hard not to make it sound didactic or as if her thoughts are being imposed on you,” says Liquorice. Playing solo was a different kind of monster because she had to learn to pace herself. Especially when they opened in Grahamstown and she was sometimes doing two shows a day.
But that’s something of the past, the show has been rewarded and acclaimed and Liquorish is comfortable with what she’s achieved with the character.
“When I went to Cape Town just to brush up on the nitty gritty, we felt we had what we wanted,” she says. “You allow the words to tell the story. It’s the kind of piece that gets you in the gut, evokes the right things and the emotion hopefully sparks debate.”
That’s what she wants from theatre – debate and discussion. If that flows from a performance, she’s a happy performer.
She’s thrilled about the Market run because she believes they will attract exciting audiences. “It’s where political theatre in this country was born,” she says. This is also different because it is Rachel Corrie’s voice speaking – put together from her prolific writing which was collected in e-mails and diaries, emerging in a 300-page book and then turned into a solo play by Rickman.
Corrie realised, says Liquorice, once she arrived in Gaza, that this was far bigger than herself. She was on her way back home when the tragedy happened.
“It’s her story, a first person narrative of what she saw and her experience of it.”
And when one asks about all the stories that could come out of Gaza, why that of Rachel Corrie? Is her story that important?
“It’s not,” says Liquorish who has obviously fielded this line of questioning before. But she feels, this is the point of view of someone who stands outside of the conflict and thus makes it more accessible to those of us who don’t know enough.
“It’s just one person’s tragedy.”
Another reason she loves the work is that it isn’t pro anything but humanity.
That’s what art means to Kate Liquorice. It invigorates people and one can’t apologise for that. “I believe in this play.”
For this actress who recently returned from a month-long stint at the Royal Shakespeare Company as one of the Brett Goldin bursary winners, reconnecting with classical texts and the amazing teachers and directors on hand to lead them every step of the way was a wonderful opportunity.
It’s great for a young actor to connect with this world, the work ethics and their emphasis on the written word, Shakespeare’s word. “I felt a bit like a kid in a candy store.”
When she’s not acting or involved in some performance, Liquorish turns her mind to food – another of her passions. It started with a family who made the kitchen their hub.
Her love of cooking and baking has even been turned into a sideline career with a blog as well as contributing to Food24.
“I would love to do a cooking show on TV but it has to be different and right,” she says. She harks back to the days of Floyd who she believes had an authenticity about him that is missing with today’s celebrity chefs.
But that’s also true about Ms Liquorice, there’s an honesty, an openness that catches you unawares.