In light of Donald Trump being elected President of the United States last November — a threat to the rights of 2SLGBTQIA+ people, BIPOC, immigrants and women — as well as the silence of world leaders throughout the war in Gaza, The Arsonists is a scary reminder that history tends to repeat itself.
Swiss playwright Max Frisch first presented The Arsonists (the original German title is Biedermann und die Brandstifter) in 1953 as a radio play, less than a decade after World War II.
(In)famously, Switzerland has often taken a “neutral stance in world affairs,” noted Stephen Heatley in the director’s notes of this production.
"I feel quite confident that this absolute lack of action by [Frisch’s] home country in what turned out to be a moral disaster of epic proportions is what motivated his play.”
In The Arsonists, a town faces mass arson, with rumours spreading of arsonists taking lodging in people’s attics before setting the houses on fire. However, Biedermann, a wealthy businessman, is overly hospitable to strangers who openly talk about arson and their plans to burn the town down, giving them the benefit of the doubt. He is so accommodating that he helps them store their supplies in his attic.
When I walked into the theatre, I was immediately taken aback by the staging and set design. The Telus Studio Theatre is a black box theatre with three levels of seats arranged in a horseshoe configuration. As the audience, we were all complicit — observing the arsonists and making eye contact with the cast, especially the chorus firefighters, as they observed us right back.
The satirical play was very funny, with arsonists Billy Eisenring (Ekaterina De Boni) and Schmitz (Baltzer Musherure) creating an amusing atmosphere with witty banter, continuing in the background even as other characters were in the spotlight.
Paula Goldie as Anna, the maid in the household, was my favourite character. She had amazing comedic timing, from her facial expressions, slow turns to face Schmitz after they made ridiculous requests and iconic storm-offs ‘into the house’ (behind the curtain).
Even small details like the lit window splayed across the stage, designed by Kaitlyn Fernandes and Hana Yaguchi, were so creative. I loved the interactive moment when a character ‘shut’ the window and the light switched off — a tiny moment in the grand scheme of the performance, but I thought it was very clever.
I thought the final dinner scene with the arsonists, Gottlieb Biedermann (Miles Davies) and their wife Babette (Yan Ching (Rainbow) Hui) was longer than it needed to be, but perhaps I was simply eager to see if the arsonists would be successful in their plot.
The ending was an explosion of effects, making an impactful statement on moral responsibility, complicity and silence. Although quite loud, the chaos and commotion of the sound design in combination with the revealed final backdrop — which looked like a cityscape going up in flames — highlighted how bystanders are just as responsible if they choose to do nothing.
Heatley writes how “Today, the world is facing so many conflicts and conundrums; political ones, ethical ones, moral ones. Some of them are taking place across the world from us. Some are taking place in our own backyard.”
But he also notes how we must ask ourselves, “‘as a citizen of the world, what is my responsibility to address the mistakes that have been made — or will I just pretend that they didn’t happen?’”
The Arsonists runs until February 8, 2025. Tickets are available here.
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