VANESSA REDGRAVE: Well, I expect your viewers know that My Name Is Rachel Corrie was supposed to be opening in New York at the New York Theater Workshop in the week beginning March the 20th, and the Royal Court Theatre, who are the producers of My Name Is Rachel Corrie, were raising money for the 50,000 pounds that was their share of the production, and Alan Rickman had underwritten it, and suddenly, the New York Theater Workshop said something strange over the phone to the Royal Court, like maybe we’ve got to postpone this because we have consulted with a number of groups in New York City and we just don’t think – and then, I believe, from some other emails I’ve heard, the New York Theater Workshop referred to “contextualization,” which nobody what that means.
But the basic thing is that -- what's horrible about it is that, first of all, the text of this production – because it isn’t a play – was taken from Rachel's diaries. Rachel was a fantastic young American girl, who any country, anybody of any faith or race should be just so proud and thrilled that the human race can produce a girl like that. So the entire text was taken, edited from her diaries by Alan Rickman, who directed, and Megan Dodds, playing Rachel, and performed at the Royal Court Theatre to overwhelming critical wonder, let alone acclaim, and to all of us who went to the see the place once, twice or more.
And the theater was full of young people, full of young people who hadn't been to the Royal Court Theatre before, but had the idea that this was a play about a young girl and therefore it might have something to do with something they might care about. In fact, I was with Alan one night in the Royal Court bar downstairs, and there were loads of young girls, and, of course, they were all coming up to Alan and saying, “Well, you know, we didn't know what to expect, but this is really -- this is extraordinary, extraordinary,” because they hadn’t even, some of them, been in the theater before, any theater before, let alone the Royal Court Theatre before.
And Rachel, as anyone who’s seen this production, based entirely on her diaries until she was killed trying to defend these Palestinian lives, who were in this house, that an Israeli army bulldozer was heading for to demolish, and Rachel knew they were in the house, and so she just stood in front of the house like all the international volunteers have been doing and like some wonderful Israeli human rights people who I know have been doing, and the bulldozer kept coming, and her back was broken and she died. 
And it was canceled, although they used the word “postponed.” But we all know in the theater that if you use the word "postponed," you mean “canceled.” Let alone that there were jobs at stake, let alone that money that was at stake, the main issue, and now it’s important in a blacklisting kind of time where we are, but the terrible thing was that it was silencing that girl, and she was killed to be silenced. These volunteers, they stand, whether Israeli or American or from whichever country they were coming, in her case, American, they stand in front of a house or some children or a building to prevent the families being shot at and the houses being demolished, and they crawl out and wave white flags.
So, her voice was silenced by an IDF bulldozer, a Caterpillar bulldozer, but then the Theater Workshop in New York, they not only then silenced her by canceling this production, but at the end of the production, there's a little, little moment from a speech that Rachel made when she was ten years old at a school ceremony, and the children must have all been told to prepare speeches about what they cared about in the world, and Rachel made this speech about world poverty and the misery that poverty causes and her wish and desire and belief that the world could and would end poverty, and that this must be done. So the New York Theater Workshop also silenced that little girl, too, who is speaking for everybody all over the world, whoever they are. It’s a very, very bad situation.
AMY GOODMAN: So, this play did not -- this production did not cause controversy in London?
VANESSA REDGRAVE: Oh, I suppose behind the scenes it did. In fact, I know it did, because the Royal Court Theatre were getting various letters and phone calls and so on, but you know, I mean, that's normal. What are we all about? Supposed to be a democracy where people can say what they want and make a phone call or write a letter saying, “I don't agree” or “This is awful” or whatever, but the Royal Court quite rightly didn't pay any attention at all, and the audiences packed in.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about the argument that in this time of, I guess they had said, the Prime Minister Sharon in a coma and the Hamas election, that they didn't think it was the proper time?
VANESSA REDGRAVE: Is that what they said? I hadn’t read that. Is that what they said?
AMY GOODMAN: I think there was some mumbling about that.
VANESSA REDGRAVE: Oh, well, I'm sure there’s a hell of a lot of mumbling behind, but it doesn't matter. I mean, the essence of life and the essence of theater is to communicate about lives, either lives that have ended or lives that are still alive, beliefs, what is in those beliefs, and this was an extraordinary young girl. It wasn’t -- she didn't take sides, although she went to defend Palestinians. It isn't about taking sides. It’s about defending human life. That's the basis of all human rights. That's the basis of what every country proclaims it stands for. 
I don't know of a single government that actually abides by international human rights law, not one, including my own. In fact, violate these laws in the most despicable and obscene way, I would say. But to cancel a play, and it wasn't really a play, to cancel a voice, because it was her voice, is an act of such catastrophic cowardice, because we are living in times when people are quite fearful enough about speaking out, for losing their career or, you know, whatever, and I think it’s -- people in the theater, in film, radio, television, dance, music, we have to do what we must do.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think times have changed since you won the Oscar about a quarter of a century ago and spoke out for Palestinians then?
VANESSA REDGRAVE: Oh, yes. Times have changed, alright. The human rights movement, the nongovernmental organizations, the U.N. agencies have got stronger and stronger. There are communities all over the world who work with human rights groups. In contradistinction to this wonderful development, you have governments that are violating human rights. Now, if you have an artistic enterprise that then moves in and opens the door for all the censorship-directed policies of any government, then that becomes a conduit for silencing of an awful lot of people who have got things to say about many other things. So I’ve never known -- I must say, in my experience, I had the support of Jewish communities. I had the support of American Actors Equity, because, you know, efforts were made to silence me along the way, and I had to, you know, go to several court cases, in fact, and I did. I sued, and it was in the suing that the truth came out --
AMY GOODMAN: Who did you sue?
VANESSA REDGRAVE: -- that, actually, there’s many more people want the freedom to communicate, as long as it’s not blasphemous and destructive in a rotten way of other people, in other words, racist. I mean, those cartoons, for instance, that have shocked us all were racist. They were fascist in character, the cartoons of the Prophet with a bomb on his head. I mean, that's a very rightwing paper, Jyllands-Posten, and it’s not surprising that they published those cartoons as a sort of provocation. We have got these sort of fascist kind of things happening in the world, and we don't need any more of them.
However, the play, because the New York Theater Workshop canceled, there’s a producer in London, and it’s going to open in London at a major West End Theater, My Name Is Rachel Corrie, and the press night’s March the 28th. So, while every attempt has been made to suppress by governments, I think we’ve got that reminder of what Shakespeare said, “The truth will rise, though all the earth o’erwhelm it, to men's eyes.”
AMY GOODMAN: Vanessa Redgrave, the last time we saw you was in New York. You had come with a delegation, and you were headed to Washington speaking out about the detainees at Guantanamo. You were with your brother, Corin, as well, I believe, Moazzam Begg’s father --
VANESSA REDGRAVE: Mr. Azmat Begg, and the lawyers of some of the European prisoners in Guantanamo.
AMY GOODMAN: Moazzam Begg has since been released, but many others remain. What has come of the movement that you have helped to found?
VANESSA REDGRAVE: Well, we were just a small hard-working part of it. Those lawyers everywhere, not only the wonderful American lawyers, like the Center for Constitutional Rights, like the American Civil Liberties Union, but many, many big firms have poured in to assist, because they are so horrified at what is being done in Guantanamo Bay, and the same is true, I would say, in a different way here in England, because we not only had a whole number of U.K. citizens in Guantanamo Bay, but we still have British families who have got U.K. fathers, brothers, sons, who are held in Guantanamo. So we have a particular responsibility to free them.
Commentary 
Rachel Corrie was 23 years old when she was crushed by the bulldozer. The play, entitled “My Name is Rachel Corrie”, is based on her writings before her death. James Nicola, artistic director of the New York Theater Workshop, said "In our pre-production planning and our talking around and listening in our communities in New York, what we heard was that after Ariel Sharon’s illness and the election of Hamas, we had a very edgy situation. We found that our plan to present a work of art would be seen as us taking a stand in a political conflict, that we didn’t want to take." 
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