Review: The Arsonists (Strawdog Theatre)

  
  
The Arsonists

Written by Max Frisch
Adapted by Alistair Beaton  
Directed by Matt Hawkins
at Strawdog Theatre, 3829 N. Broadway (map)
thru Sept 27  |  tickets: $24-$28   |  more info
  
Check for half-price tickets 
  
  
   Read review
  

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Scorched black comedy for the ages

Strawdog Theatre presents

The Arsonists

Review by Clint May 

It was a dark and stormy night in the theater for the opening of Strawdog’s 27th season. Melodramatic thunder of the artificial variety punctuates the proceedings of the 2007 adaptation of Max Frisch’s absurdist The Arsonists (aka The Fire Raisers or The Firebugs). Like those overbearing rumblings, The Arsonists is a non-subtle satire of bourgeois complacency in the face of evil. If you want a more modern take on similar themes, wait for a remount of Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day. Even updated, Arsonists is unabashedly old-fashioned, with its Greek-style chorus of firemen and symbolism as blatant as any horror movie. Beaton’s update under Matt Hawkins’ direction manages to find itself mostly lighter than air as it turns this cautionary fable into a backdraft that engulfs the audience in its searing indictments.

A successful and self-assured hair tonic peddler by the name of Biderman (Robert Kauzlaric)—the name itself a pun on the idea of a common man—has just finished elucidating to his maid (Rebecca Wolfe) how the city’s arsonists infiltrate homes.  No sooner is he finished than in from the storm is Schmitz (Scott Danielson), a physically imposing wrestler seeking shelter and playing upon the sympathies of all around him with sob stories of a miner father and orphanage upbringing. True to the parable of the mouse and the cookie, the man ingratiates himself to both Biderman and his histrionic wife Babette (Sarah Goeden) by flattering their vision of themselves as philanthropic liberals.

Even as Schmitz brings in his waiter friend (Ira Amyx) and begins to fill the attic with petrol, their middle-class manners and insulated thinking cannot bring them to believe they are accomplices to evil. A subplot involving Biderman’s mistreatment of a former employee drives home the theme of personal and public dissonance that allows a person to believe they are one thing while acting in another way. As long as the fires of the city don’t scorch their house, Biderman and family believe the arsonists in the attic to be mere buffoons, even as they baldly state their intentions and the blasting wires entangle the house. Their motives are never explained beyond that they simply like to do it. A near mute philosopher recants before the inevitably incendiary ending just in time to be late.

Beaton wisely omits Frisch’s later epilogue involving the gates of hell, while Hawkin’s adds some wry in-jokes with instrumental versions of “Black Hole Sun” and “We Didn’t Start the Fire” on the radio. Pacing is still a tricky thing with such an invasive chorus, and some may not like having the themes so aggressively (and unnecessarily) summarized for them while at the same time having forward momentum arrested. Kauzlaric is a skilled satirist as he proved so recently in Lifeline’s Monstrous Regiment, but in this case no one holds a firelighter to Goeden and Danielson. Their one scene together is a masterpiece of subtle physicality and comic timing. They have faces made for farce.

Written partly in response to the rise of Nazism, Frisch’s story fits any era. He wanted to illustrate the foolish, incredulous complicity that often accompanies destruction. It could apply to any travesty so large that our minds shut it out, unable to make it personal because we need the world to be small and distant even when it’s right in front of us. There’s never a small amount of those stories to rip from the headlines. Maybe The Arsonists will light a fire under some asses.

Rating: ★★★

The Arsonists continues through September 27th at Strawdog Theatre, 3829 N. Broadway (map), with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays 4pm.  Tickets are $24-$28, and are available online through OvationTix.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at Strawdog.org.  (Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission)

Photos by Chris Ocken 

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artists

cast

Scott Danielson (Schmitz), Robert Kauzlaric (Bidermann), Sarah Goeden (Babette), Ira Amyx (Eisenring), Rebecca Wolfe (Anna), Lea Pascal (Chorus), Jared Fernley, Mike Ooi, Neal Starbird, Scottie Caldwell, Rob Vignisson, Blair Robertson (Chorus)

behind the scenes

Matt Hawkins (director), Mike Mroch (set design), Sean Mallary (lighting design), Brittany Dee Bodley (costume design), Kenton Gott (assistant director), Katie Adams (stage manager), Laura Barati (production manager), Sarah Espinoza (sound design, asst. director), Jamie Karas (props design), Ian Olsen (technical director), Cypress Staelin (master electrician), Chris Ocken (photos)

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