When Rachel Corrie was in the second grade, one of the classroom rules was that "everyone must feel safe". She decided this was a pretty good rule for life. But then she discovered there are people in the world who don't feel safe, who don't know if their house will still be there tomorrow, or whether they and their families will still be alive. Rachel determined to come out of her own safe zone, to escape the "doll's house" of her upbringing.
Rachel Corrie was just 23 when, in March 2003, a bulldozer tossed her body aside as she tried to protect a Palestinian home in Rafah in Gaza from being flattened. Told almost entirely in her own words, this is the story of Rachel's life and her journey from a comfortable, liberal upbringing to acting as a human shield between the Israeli army and the Palestinian people. This was a girl who wasn't prepared to sit idly by and watch. She also recognised that privilege could render her life meaningless, and so decided to do something about it. "I can't cool boiling waters in Russia. I can't be Picasso. I can't be Jesus. I can't save the planet single-handedly. I can wash dishes."
Elegantly edited and shaped from Rachel's diaries and writings by Alan Rickman and the Guardian's Katharine Viner, and performed with egoless, unaffected simplicity by Megan Dodds, this play is not about a girl who died, but about one who packed more into 23 years than most of us do into a lifetime. The immediacy of her writings and diaries are such that over the 90 minutes, it is like watching a speeded-up film of a girl - who joyfully describes herself as "scattered, deviant and too loud", who makes endless lists and smokes too much - grow up and discover her own voice, her own point of view, and truly become her own person.
It could have been mawkish; it might have been sentimental. It isn't. Go, and take your teenagers with you, not because - God forbid - you want them to suffer such a terrible fate, but because just occasionally you see a show in the theatre and hear a voice that, like Rachel's, vibrates with passion and idealism, and that teaches us all how to live.
· Until May 7. Box office: 0870 060 6631.
