★★★★
‘Ismini Papaioannou’s set design supports the show excellently with clear themes. Clothes are a pivotal prop in this play, previously strewn across the floor and refashioned onstage by Ruiz into a shelter which acts as her sleeping area in Gaza’.Everything Theatre
Written & Edited by Katharine Viner & Alan Rickman
Directed by Alex Stroming
Set & Costume Design by Ismini Papaioannou
Performed by Lyndsey Ruiz
produced by T. Regina Theatre Company
Production Photography: Austeja Cheg & Ismini Papaioannou
At 23 years old and six thousand miles from home, Rachel Corrie stood between an armoured bulldozer and a family home. The play, drawn from her journals, traces her journey from Olympia, Washington, to Gaza, where she went voluntarily as part of her activist work, and where she ultimately lost her life.
The design seeks to create a space built from fabric. At once a collective memory, a memorial, and a haunting presence of what remains.
Lost garments stand in for lost lives. To step on these clothes is to step on bodies, fragments of histories, and traces of the earth itself. A landfill of pre-existing lives. The fabrics speak of place: of displacement, of exile, of what refugees must carry with them. Hanging on washing lines, they become anchors—ties and attachments, fragile attempts at grounding. In Gaza, a tent emerges from these gathered fabrics: soft yet unstable, offering insulation, but always ephemeral and destructible.