With the Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF)’s decision to stage “My Name Is Rachel Corrie” during its 2007 season in July, the shouting match that has led to the play’s cancellation in New York, Toronto, and Miami and upstaged a recent production in Seattle could follow the play to Shepherdstown.

Corrie might be the most talked-about playwright in America today. Her work is drawing crowds, sparking controversy, and being called engaging and refreshing by theater critics. Corrie also has roused debate about whether her writing is one-sided and myopic, about whether her play is overtly political polemic disguised as a coming-of-age story. There is even debate about whether Corrie is a playwright at all because her script was cobbled together from her letters and emails.

Corrie cannot answer to any of her detractors or accept praise from admirers: She died tragically in 2003 while volunteering in Gaza. The Olympia, Wash., native was aiding families whose homes were being destroyed in the conflict with Israel and was crushed by a bulldozer. This is where agreement about her story ends.

From there ensues an argument about whether the organization for which Corrie volunteered was actually hindering Israeli counter-terrorism efforts, about whether Corrie was an idealist who was duped into abetting a terrorist organization, about the U.S. role in supporting oppression of the Palestinians, about whether the play is anti-Semitic, and on and on.

What’s lost in this street fight is that in this play the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is really a backdrop for a story of a young woman trying to summon the courage to live up to her ideals.

“It’s a very human story. I connected with this play because of Rachel’s idealistic voice,” says CATF producing director Ed Herendeen. “It reconnected me with my youth and my idealism.”

According to most press accounts, many of the play’s admirers share Herendeen’s perspective. The setting could have been Darfur, Liberia, or any of the world’s most dangerous and contested places. For Herendeen, Corrie’s voice rings with youthful optimism that people can make a difference in the world.

British actor/director Alan Rickman and journalist Katherine Viner created the 90-minute monologue from Corrie’s letters home, emails, and journal entries. It begins with Rachel as a young girl and follows an arc to her death at the age of 23. For some of the play’s critics, Rickman and Viner should be considered its authors because they chose Corrie’s writings to shape the story with a certain point of view.

“It’s Rachel’s story, from her point of view,” said Herendeen.

In the play, Rachel Corrie’s character does express sympathy for the Israeli nation and with Jewish people. Her political opinions, called naïve by her detractors, are not highly evolved. Her criticisms of the Israeli government are less nuanced and less vitriolic than those sometimes expressed in the Israeli press or by Israeli citizens arguing in coffee shops.

For Stanley Marinoff, a retired physician and CATF trustee, the most controversial material in the play comes not from Corrie’s writings but from material inserted by Rickman and Viner. “The monologue may be naïve, but alone is not controversial,” said Marinoff. In Marinoff’s view, it is the text added by Rickman and Viner into a play that is otherwise Corrie’s work, that fuels the controversy. The additional text also lends credibility to the view that Viner and Rickman, not Corrie, are the playwrights. “They decided what goes in and what stays out,” said Marinoff.

f Rickman and Viner set out to craft a political play, the argument can be made that they have failed. We tend to think of political theater as one that builds both sides of an argument, then rips one asunder or lets it lie for the viewer to interpret. Although “My Name Is Rachel Corrie” humanizes the conflict and anguishes over its effect on everyday Palestinians, the play won’t change any minds.

What concerns Marinoff is that the play could harden minds “of people who are predisposed to be anti-Zionist, who have an opinion that Israel is the cause of all the problems of the Middle East.”

From material appearing on web logs and media accounts surrounding the Seattle production, this is a valid concern. Pro-Palestinian activists have jeered during performances and often outnumbered the Jewish community protesting the play. American Jewish organizations chose not to organize protests in Seattle, but to purchase advertising in the production’s program.

Despite his concerns, Marinoff is hopeful that the CATF production will promote dialogue about the Middle East. CATF will include a moderated discussion about the Middle East in its popular Under the Tent series during the festival. There may also be post-performance discussions and other opportunities for dialogue. “The way to solve a problem is not to run away from it,” he said.

The play might, as good writing and good lives do, invite people to examine their comfort zones. Perhaps this is because Rachel Corrie’s musings on being human and afraid and hopeful come off as genuine.

“This is a young voice who is now silenced,” said Herendeen. “I empathize with the tragedy that brought that. I have tremendous empathy for the people in that violent part of the world where she chose to place herself.”

Whenever a theater company stages a controversial play, some theatergoers will see dollars in the motive. Some will say CATF chose

Rachel Corrie because controversy sells tickets. Herendeen points out that in the world of nonprofit theater, the opposite is true.

“We lost a one hundred thousand dollar pledge based on this decision,” said Herendeen. “Some of our longtime donors and ticket holders have told us they won’t be coming this year,” he said, adding that if ticket sales were the motive, the production would be staged at CATF’s main stage rather than in the intimate studio theater that holds about 125 people.

The decision to stage the play has created a stir within CATF. Early on, a few trustees hinted they might resign over the play’s content. Others were concerned by the negative financial implications of staging the play. The trustees met for a Saturday session to discuss the decision to produce the play. To Herendeen, the discussion was an energizing example of how theater can inspire dialogue. Ultimately, though, one trustee, H. Alan Young, did resign over the trustees’ decision to back the production.

As for the political aspects of “My Name Is Rachel Corrie,” promoting dialogue is more important to Herendeen than framing the sides of the arguments. Taken further, theater is not a debating forum that neatly lays out the sides of a dispute.

“If we can find empathy for this woman and for the situation she found herself in, if we can learn empathy for others,” says Herendeen, “maybe that’s the road for us to understand others. Then maybe we can have a conversation and a dialogue with one another.”

IIt remains to be seen whether leafleteers supporting Israel or Palestine will congregate in Shepherdstown in July. As in most such conflicts, the majority of the protesters and counter-protesters will not have seen or plan to see the play. They will leave it to those who actually do to decide whether it was deserving of the controversy or worthy of inclusion in a season featuring plays by Richard Dresser and Lee Blessing—two prominent American playwrights whose work has premiered at CATF.

My Name Is Rachel Corrie opens July 5 as part of the CATF 2007 season.