Max Herman/Borderless MagazineIn her debut play, Sadieh Rifai draws on her family’s move from Nevada to Ohio with her Palestinian-American family as they deal with grief, mental illness and global turmoil.
Sadieh Rifai recounts the absurdity of being part of a Muslim family living in Kewanee, Illinois — the “hog capital of the world.”
“Why do we keep picking these insane places to live?” she thought.
With a Palestinian father and an American mother, Rifai lived in 13 different places throughout her childhood. She viewed each home as a new opportunity to transform into a new person.
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From her travels between Las Vegas, Nevada, to Columbus, Ohio, one thing remained consistent: family. Rifai memorialized her family’s experiences in her debut play, “The Cave,” at the Red Orchid Theatre.
Similar to her life, the play details the story of a Palestinian-American family’s move from Las Vegas to Columbus amid global turmoil and tragedy. The play leans into the family’s use of humor while exploring themes of grief, mental illness, love and migration.
Rifai said her family often turned to humor to cope with the ongoing instability of assimilation, new cultures and language barriers.
At the essence of the play, it’s a story about family, she said.
I hope that people come in and see their parents and grandparents,” she said. [I hope that] “they see themselves in some of these characters, and that they leave with an understanding of Palestinians, the culture, the beauty of Islam, and what it’s like to have a complicated family.”
Borderless sat down with Rifai to talk about her experiences putting her childhood on paper and how her own experiences were illustrated throughout the play. The interview was edited for length and clarity.
How was The CAVE informed by your childhood experiences?
My dad is Palestinian. He is from Hebron. People hear that you have an immigrant dad, and they just think they know exactly who this person is. But my dad is so dry and funny. He thinks he’s hilarious. He tells a joke that lasts 15 minutes. For many of us who have immigrant parents, there is a language struggle. There is a struggle with people looking at them differently, especially if you are a Muslim in the ‘90s. It just became a scary place to exist in a place that was majority white and Christian and my family moved into that. My father also had a mental illness. We’re learning that immigrants [exposed to trauma] have some of the highest numbers of mental illness. It was like, “Of course they do. They are othered. They are not accepted. It is so much struggle.”
For me, it was important to see a Middle Eastern father who was funny, a good dad, who was trying really hard even through mental illness. I want to disrupt this idea of what immigrant parents are. I had white grandparents and Palestinian grandparents. My white grandparents couldn’t have possibly loved my dad more. But also, there was racism there. My grandmother would ask him: “Do they have forks in your country?” My dad loved the family so much that he would just laugh along with it. Many families might relate to those moments of family dynamics where they love each other, but they say the wrong things so many times.
Where did you draw the line between fiction and reality?
What I didn’t want was to put my exact life on stage. I felt like I was trying to remember real conversations and dialogue and was getting caught up in that.
A mentor said, “You are a woman who is married. You and your husband have conversations. You know what it’s like to fight and joke around. Put all of that into your characters. You don’t have to remember exactly what your characters talked about.” I took that to heart. There are pieces of all my family in there and I know they will recognize themselves. I wanted to make it a play to ensure nobody felt like I was trying to capture my dad’s look or voice. They are different people, but I think the elements of love and humor are what I saw in all the people I cast in these roles.
What was the writing process like?
This is my first time writing a play. I had been thinking about it for 17 years, but I hadn’t put anything down on paper. I was scared to do that and have it be bad. And it was. I have done so many drafts of the play, and it has taken a long time to be pushed so that you can be more honest.
I have slowly been encouraged to do that, and it felt good to get to a place where even the ugly parts of your life are shown, and I don’t feel like I have to apologize for them anymore.
What role does humor play in The CAVE?
There’s a lot of dark humor in the play. If you deal with all this struggle, you usually use humor, or you become a very serious family. We used humor to get through all those moments.
Who is your greatest inspiration?
As I get older, I’m inspired by the people I have known for the majority of my life and the struggles they have been through and seeing them develop. Something my mom has been working with is learning more. She is part of an older generation, so hearing her change her mind is great. We often hear that older generations can’t do that. I admire that about my parents. They are always looking to change their minds and learn more.
Why do you think it’s so important to foster immigrant narratives?
As I’m watching these videos in Gaza, and I’m watching babies and children be killed, and I think we are not humanized. We have been portrayed as terrorists or scary people, but we are not thought of as nuanced people who have fears, hopes for a family, wishes, desires, poetry and stories. That is why so many of our Palestinian poets and artists are being killed. It’s one way of killing that narrative. At the end of the day, we’re just people.
The Cave runs Thursdays through Sundays until March 23 at the Red Orchid Theatre. Learn more and buy tickets here.
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