Cassandra Lewis

My play, American Family was produced as part of Sheherezade, a ten-minute play festival presented by Playwrights’ Center of San Francisco.

Over eight years, Playwrights’ Center of San Francisco has staged an annual festival, Sheherezade, named after the Arabian Nights storyteller who stalled her execution by telling 1,001 stories to her new husband, who had the habit of murdering his wives after the honeymoon.

Sheherezade VIII was performed at The EXIT Theatre in San Francisco on February 7,8,9. It was directed by Erin Blackwell and Soumyaa Kapil. I was amazed by the remarkable caliber of actors, not to mention the originality and high quality of the other plays.

I have had the honor of having my work presented in this festival for three consecutive years. With the theme year in review, the plays are always very imaginative and different.

In my play, American Family, public school teacher Ouida People shows up at the home of Mr. Senate and Mrs. House to confront the negligent parents about their troubled sons, and after attempting to reason with the family she decides to conduct a citizen’s arrest during which George is dragged off stage.

Thank you to Drew, my friends, and family for all of your support and to Playwrights’ Center of San Francisco for this wonderful opportunity.

This weekend I participated in a very inspiring playwriting workshop called, “Writing the Other.” The class was taught by Betty Shamieh at Magic Theatre. She is a world-renowned writer born to Palestinian parents in San Francisco. This three-day workshop was offered for free as part of her residence at Magic Theatre as an NEA/TCG playwriting fellow.

On the first day, she told us, “What we’re going to write about in the next three days are the things that people die for.”

Identity is at the core of each person’s outlook and at the root of beliefs by which people make every decision. Identity is personal and also tied to community or other groups that share a similar concept of self. Betty Shamieh guided us through many writing exercises where we explored our own concepts of identity and our perceptions of how others not in those groups perceive us - and from a complex and sympathetic angle.

I have always been intrigued with the arguments about what a writer has a right to portray. For instance, when Kate Braverman, a writer I very much admire, visited our MFA writing program at New College in 2005, some of my classmates expressed their feelings of outrage at Braverman’s portrayal of Frida Kahlo in her novel The Incantation of Frida K.. It was an imaginary or fictional portrayal, but the outrage was directed at the idea of a white woman writing from the perspective of someone who wasn’t. This remains a controversial issue within literary circles.

Who has the right to write from any perspective? And who makes this decision?

This weekend I gathered from Betty Shamieh’s thought-provoking course that it’s the writer who makes this decision. The point of the writing exercises was to free ourselves from these conventions, to lose the inhibitions that lock us into writing from the same old perspectives.

Today, our third and last day of class, Betty Shamieh said, “We can’t really control how the world perceives us, but we can choose how we identify with ourselves.”

If you haven’t had the honor of seeing her play, Territories at Magic Theatre, I strongly recommend you book tickets immediately. It is one of the best plays I have seen in San Francisco since I moved here four years ago. It’s nothing less than brilliant.

Territories is a historic thriller set during the Crusades. A French knight captures the sister (whose name was never recorded in any historical document) of sultan Saladdin. The experimental form was inspired by Cubist paintings and the story seamlessly explores the collision of two cultures and questions the place of women during war.

“The power of imagination makes us infinite.” -John Muir

Sanjay, the photographer of the picture above, took us out for the best Easter ever. Check out his flickr page for other great photos.

Drew posted some hilarious footage and descriptions of the earlier events of the day (which I missed out on–I came out just in time for evening beverages).

“A guy can’t even get shot in his own apartment by a dame without the whole town starting to buzz…” from Jacques Tourneur’s 1947 film noir classic, Out of The Past.

Out of the Past has just been added to my list of top ten favorite film noir movies. The writing is sharp and witty and the storyline is perfectly crafted. You can see how contemporary Hollywood films have tried to copy the shape of this film’s plot. The 1947 classic is about how a former private eye, played by Robert Mitchum, can’t escape his shady past, even when he creates a new identity and life for himself in small-town America. The story moves through Bridgeport, California, to Lake Tahoe, to Acapulco and San Francisco. Cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca illuminated each frame with a stunning contrast between light and dark. You can look at this film as you would a Caravaggio painting.

For the past few years I’ve been hooked on film noir. I hope to see every film noir classic at least twice before I turn thirty. Luckily, I have plenty of time and film noir only spans a period of eighteen years: 1940-1958.

The gateway film that provoked my addiction was Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Circle Rouge, which is technically considered neo-noir because it was made in 1970. This film has complex characters and raises philosophical questions about the darker side of human nature: Are we destined to do bad deeds simply because we’re human? And what is the meaning of justice if we’re all criminals? It’s the most layered heist film ever made. It has everything you’d ever want in any style of film: surreal story sequences, emotional intrigue, believable yet surprising characters, along with the suspenseful acts of crime.

Sometimes it’s best to return to the past for answers and inspiration, especially for great films.