Ordinary Evil

A Call for Plays on the Theme of Ordinary Evil is now Closed

First Deadline March 15, 2006. Second Deadline May 30, 2006.

We are looking for one act plays in length from 10 minutes to 1 hour on the theme of "Ordinary Evil". They should have 8 characters or less, a minimal set design and lighting requirements. Plays can be written by students, teachers, or professional play writers. We hope to have a mix of all three. Plays selected from this call will be produced by Karen E. Lile in October 2007 at a theatre in the San Francisco East Bay as part of Community Circles Month. There will be one director for each play. Plays do not have to be new, but they do have to be original, on the theme and within the guidelines listed below. Once plays have been selected, the venue and date will be determined, based upon the needs of the project.

If you decide to write a new play, you are encouraged to contact us at the beginning of the process, though this is not necessary. For those who are local to the Bay Area we can arrange get togethers as play writers to discuss concepts, do readings and workshops as needed during the writing process. Contact: Karen E. Lile, 925-676-3355, klile@pacbell.net. Submit plays by email (preferred) or mail. Our Street Address: D & R Masters Inc., 1630 No. Main Street #297, Walnut Creek, CA 94596. Include your contact information and the amount you would like to charge as royalties for a public performance of your work. If you already have a director here in the Bay Area in mind, we will consider working with them as part of this project.

Guidelines

The plays selected will reveal the "essence" of an ordinary good person and ordinary evil person, both of whom are peers that have sincere regard for each other. All characters should be part of the same homogenous social group. Diversity is welcomed and encouraged. The play can take place in any cultural, race or religious setting. The conflict between ordinary good and ordinary evil should not be about "us" vs. "them", but about "us" and what we do to our friends/family/others who are working alongside us when there is a scarcity of power, recognition and/or money at stake. The focus of the play should be on the subtle aspects of how we treat each other. Thus the situation and characters should not be so unusual as to take them out of the realm of the ordinary or distract the audience from focusing on the ordinary good and ordinary evil person's behavior as defined below.

The play should be "content appropriate" for ages 13 and up, as we will most likely have a matinee performance for local middle and high school students here in Contra Costa County. You can use the movie rating system as a guide (PG13), although we will not be adhering to this strictly. For example, we would not exclude a play just because the characters were talking about sex or violence or because sex or violence was implied. But, we would want the play to be more conservative about how much sex and violence is portrayed on the stage during the production. Also, we are not saying that the play can't have profanity. But, if we do a matinee performance in addition to the evening performances, then we would have to abide by local school's guidelines for the matinee performance.

The words "good" and "evil" do not have to be used in the play, nor will an explanation of this theme be revealed in the program. When produced, the individual plays should speak for themselves and the only indication that the audience will have of a common theme is the title for the entire production "Ordinary Evil". Each individual play should have its own title and should stand on its own as a complete work.

Definitions

All references to "good" and "evil" in this document are based upon the definitions below and not upon traditional religious or moral definitions of these words.

• Good: The focus of will, intention and action to bless other people, even if it means one has to sacrifice something one wants to give another person something they need.
• Evil: The focus of will, intention and action to hurt other people for the purpose of personal gain of any kind.
• Ordinary Good: To be ordinary, this good would not be something that would normally qualify a person to be promoted to sainthood or to be given a Nobel Peace Prize.
• Ordinary Evil: To be ordinary, this evil would not be criminal.
• Ordinary Good Person. Someone that when observed over a period of time, consistently chooses to do good, as defined above, when confronted by opportunities where there is a clear choice for good or evil. One can predict that this person will do good when put into new situations.
• Ordinary Evil Person. Someone that when observed over a period of time, consistently chooses to do evil, as defined above, when confronted by opportunities where there is a clear choice for good or evil. One can predict that this person will do evil when put into new situations.
• Un-clarified Person: Someone one doesn't have enough information about to know if they are ordinary good or evil, whose will, intent and actions do not match to form a unified whole.

Comments by Karen E. Lile, the author of the theme of "Ordinary Evil"

The concept of "ordinary evil" grew out of a play that I was writing. As I was writing it, I realized that it needed many voices to express it, in addition to mine. Also, I became aware that this is not a subject often talked of or communicated in the theatre and other venues these days. Often when we deal with the ordinary, we do not deal with concepts of good and evil. And when we do deal with the concepts of good and evil, we often take it to its extreme, where the evil person commits murder, rape or some other atrocity and the good person is entered into the cannon of Sainthood or receives stupendous recognition for their amazing altruism. Perhaps one of the reasons I am willing to produce plays on the theme of "ordinary evil", is because I do not feel the concept has been explored enough.

Ordinary good people often don't know that they are good. We also don't often recognize the people who are ordinary evil. Why have I decided to focus upon the ordinary? Because I am interested in the more subtle things that often go unnoticed in the ways people treat each other and the way that over time, we can start to see a pattern that emerges from some people's behavior that allows us to deduce their apparent intentions backing those actions. One of the things that continually surprises me in life is how two different people can do the same thing, and yet it can be for totally opposite intentions. Thus, we often mistake someone as being evil, when in fact they may be good, or vice versa. We are so focused on the actions and our value judgements about those actions, we don't often look beyond to see why a person is doing what they do, and whether or not it was an act of free will.

Ordinary good and ordinary evil, as I have conceived it here, is something that should be able to cross all racial, cultural and religious boundaries. I fully expect to be producing a series of plays that are diverse enough from each other that if all the play writers got together in the same room, they would probably disagree on many things.

Since my concept for the production is that the audience is only given the title "Ordinary Evil", I would like the action and dialogue of the plays to reveal enough so that the audience will "get it" by the end of the evening or after some study. In order for the audience to be able to see and understand what ordinary good and evil are by the end of the evening, I believe that each play will need to reveal some clear choice a character makes in the play or has made in the past, which can reveal the ordinary good or ordinary evil direction they are heading. This would apply, even if the ordinary evil/good character is not a character on the stage, but merely referred to.

I believe that this will most likely require revealing about the character you intend to be ordinary good and evil, that each of them

1. Has (or had) a choice to do something other than what they actually do (or did).
2. Had (or had) clear knowledge and premeditated intention to hurt others for the purpose of personal gain (ordinary evil) or to sacrifice for the purpose of blessing others (ordinary good).
3. Takes (took) the action to fulfill the intention.
4. That this is a pattern of behavior for him/her.

How do you know if your play fits the theme of Ordinary Evil?

I don't want to tell you what to write, for we hope that play writers will draw upon their diverse experiences to come up with examples of what is ordinary good and ordinary evil. Nor do we think that we know everything there is to know about this concept of ordinary good or evil. Like any definition, it takes on a life of its own, growing beyond the creator as it enters into the universe of thought and use.

But, it might be helpful if we examine some other plays that have already been written and discuss how they do and do not fit the theme of ordinary evil and good. In all of these cases, the plays referred to below, were written before this Call for Plays and the terms "good", "evil" and "ordinary" are not used by these authors. I beg theses play writer's indulgence in using their plays as an example here.

• The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window by Lorraine Hansberry. This play does fit the theme of Ordinary Evil. In this play, I would consider Wally as the ordinary evil character, who uses his friend Sidney to win a political campaign, with full intent that he will be abandoning the very principles he promised he would uphold if he is elected. This will hurt his friend Sidney and Wally knows it and does it willingly for the purpose of his own personal gain. I would consider Sidney as an ordinary good person, who sacrifices the support of advertisers in the newspaper he owns, to help his friend and bless the community. In the end, Wally is revealed for what he is to Sidney, and Sidney becomes aware that he is a good person (despite his own misgivings about himself) and that he can and will block the efforts of ordinary evil people like Wally in the future, even if it costs him the success of his newspaper. The other characters I would consider unclarified. Alton, for example, rejects Gloria, who commits suicide. But Alton does not reject Gloria out of any desire to hurt her, but based upon his own past and feelings. And we don't know enough about the men (those who hired her as a prostitute) who hurt Gloria to say whether they are ordinary evil men. Gloria, Iris and Mavis have the potential to be ordinary good people, but not enough is revealed about them to come to this conclusion. We don't see them facing a decision where they can make a clear choice of will, with clear purpose and action in one direction or the other. The play is a two act play, so it is a bit longer and uses a more elaborate set design than we intend for our production in October 2006 but, otherwise, it would fit nicely within the theme of Ordinary Evil.
• Tiny Alice by Edward Albee. This play does not fit within the guidelines of the theme of Ordinary Evil, but it has some characteristics that almost fit. For example, the character, the Cardinal, could be considered an ordinary evil character up until he turns away the money, because he made a deliberate decision to sacrifice the well being of his lay brother Julian in order for the Church to receive a donation of $100,000 per year for 20 years. Even though that money doesn't go directly in his pocket, it is his job to get donations and he does get recognition and have more power within the church to do things if the church has that money. And Julian is portrayed as someone who might be considered ordinary good because of his desire to serve the church, even at his own expense. And certainly the characters of the Lawyer, the Butler and Alice use Julian's willingness to sacrifice for his church to seduce him into giving up his celibacy. But, the story is not ordinary. There is a supernatural power/entity in the house and model that is called Tiny Alice that has some macabre control over the Lawyer, the Butler and Alice. And in the end, the Lawyer shoots Julian, so this is not an ordinary evil event.
• The Dreamer Examines His Pillow by John Patrick Shanley. This play does deal with themes that are ordinary, but I would not judge the characters to be ordinary good or evil. Rather I would say they are unclarified or perhaps ordinary good (if more were revealed) but subject to their own weaknesses, which results in their hurting of others. For example the character Tommy, even though he is clearly hurting Donna by sleeping with her sister and being abusive to Donna at times, appears to be doing this out of personal weakness rather than a clear cut willingness to hurt others for his own personal gain.

What questions we might ask you about your play (after we have read it)?

1. Who did you intend to be the ordinary evil character in the play? What is the personal gain that this person will derive from hurting others? Who does he/she hurt and how? Is this revealed in the play?
2. Who did you intend to be the ordinary good character in the play? Did he/she make a sacrifice of something important to her/him, for the purpose of blessing others? If so, what did he/she sacrifice and who did he/she intend to benefit as a result? Is this revealed in the play?
3. Which characters are unclarified in the play? Did you intend for them to be unclarified?
4. Is the situation and the actions of the characters ordinary (i.e. no criminal behavior, etc.)?

Even if the script you submit does not exactly fit all the guidelines of the ordinary evil theme now, feel free to submit it anyway, if you would be willing to change it to fit the theme. Then, if we like what you are doing and vice versa, we will be willing to give you feedback and work with you as you rewrite the play until it does fit the theme.

Further assumptions about the behavior of ordinary good and ordinary evil people.

1. An ordinary good person can hurt other people unintentionally or as a result of their own weaknesses. This does not make them evil.
2. An ordinary good person can hurt other people by accident. This does not make them evil. For example, if someone accidentally hit someone with their car, this would not make them evil, even though the person being hit was hurt.
3. An ordinary good person can also hurt other people for good. For example, a soldier fighting to defend his family, home, country.
4. An ordinary evil person can bless other people unintentionally or by accident. Also they can do things that bless others for evil intents.
5. Ordinary good people can use the actions of evil people to accomplish good things.
6. Ordinary evil people can use the actions of good people to accomplish evil things.
7. An ordinary evil person cannot do good. They would have to become an ordinary good person to do good. Otherwise, they would be an un-clarified person.
8. An ordinary good person cannot do evil. They would have to become an ordinary evil person to do evil. Otherwise, they would be an un-clarified person.