Censorship has never been as bad in America as it is today.

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Peace activist Rachel Corrie in a photo from September 2002.
Photo: AP

WASHINGTON: A New York theatre company has put off plans to stage a play about an American activist killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza because of the current "political climate" - a decision the play's British director, Alan Rickman, denounced as "censorship".

James Nicola, the artistic director of the New York Theatre Workshop, said it had never formally said it would be staging the play, My Name is Rachel Corrie, but it had been considering putting it on in March.

"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," Nicola said on Monday.

"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."

He said he had suggested a postponement until next year.

Rickman, best known for his acting roles in Love, Actually and the Harry Potter series and who directed the play at London's Royal Court Theatre, denounced the decision.

"I can only guess at the pressures of funding an independent theatre company in New York, but calling this production 'postponed' does not disguise the fact that it has been cancelled," he said.

Corrie was a 23-year-old activist from Washington state. She was crushed in March 2003 when she put herself between an Israeli Army bulldozer and a Palestinian home it was about to demolish in Rafah, on the Egyptian border.

The Guardian