From bearing witness to writing drama

In Michael Redhill's "Goodness," which played New York's Performance Space 122 in March, that character is the playwright himself. A woman tells the playwright how she worked as a prison guard for the leader of an unnamed late 20th century genocide carried out on her people (the actress playing the guard is black but the actress playing her younger self is white). Engulfed in his own problems, the playwright eventually realizes how he too is capable of violence and how "you're just a half a step away from where these other people got to," Redhill says.

In adapting her touring solo play "Miracle in Rwanda" from the story of the real-life survivor Immaculee Ilibagiza, Leslie Lewis Sword wanted to sidestep the myths and cliches about genocide by bringing out the complex emotions involved. Ilibagiza survived the genocide by hiding in a bathroom with seven other women for three months, but most striking of all is how she forgave the man who helped murder her family.

"I can't forgive someone for taking my parking space, let alone somebody murdering your entire family," Sword says. "She's a case study of how to live a happy life. Here, for $35, we'll show you how to forgive." Sword says that one woman who saw the show went home and called her sister for the first time in 12 years.

Many plays about genocide in Africa use, of all things, humor. In "Rash," Wolfson recounts the phone conversation in which she reported that Hutu rebels had stolen her Visa card. She also draws amusement from her protective but oblivious Scottish-Jewish parents. (Her dad: "Why don't you just stay at home? I'll teach you golf.")

In Catherine Filloux's "Lemkin's House," the tragicomic protagonist is the ghost of Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term "genocide" and died in 1959. In childhood he plays genocide games with spoons and forks, and later he pesters U.S. senators to ratify the U.N.'s international anti-genocide treaty. After the ratification in 1988, with genocide supposedly no longer a problem, the ghost retires to work on crossword puzzles before Rwandan victims barge into his home.

Unexpected results

"LEMKIN'S House" had a run at the Resilience of the Spirit Human Rights Festival in San Diego this spring and played off-Broadway last year.

"I've had, with survivors, the most amazing laughs and the most amazing moments of joy," says Filloux, who has written many plays on genocide. "Somehow that kind of suffering and that area of emotion definitely brings up the comic moments."

Although plays about genocide can broaden awareness, it's an open question whether they can influence change. In an effort to channel the goodwill instilled by the play "In Darfur," the Public Theater passed out postcards that urged the state of New York to stop investing in companies doing business with Sudan. During the April run of the play, tables in the lobby had books for sale and donation suggestions.

At a talkback for "The Overwhelming" in London, Rogers was asked if political plays could make a difference. "I really don't think so," he responded. Then, he recalls, "somebody, with perfect timing, put up their hand and said, 'I just saw your play last week, I just joined Human Rights Watch, and I'm going to Rwanda for two months. The whole audience stood up [and applauded]. And I was like, 'Well, I'm proved wrong.' "