Swiss playwright Max Frisch's 1963 absurdist comedy, The Firebugs, gets a new translation and title by Alistair Beaton, a British playwright specializing in political satire. The Firebugs was set in 1950s Germany, but The Arsonists, we learn from the program, is set "somewhere in America -- or maybe Germany," and the time is described as "the 50s -- or maybe now."
Obviously, the intent is to make the play more relevant to a 21st-century Los Angeles audience; the dialogue is snappier and full of modern slang. But the play's businessman hero, Biedermann (the superb Norbert Weisser), still speaks with a German accent and sometimes argues in German with his uptight wife Babette (the equally effective Beth Hogan).
Frisch's theme is society's response in the face of evil. Biedermann is not only successful but bourgeois and conservative, but out of guilt (having stolen the patent on a valuable chemical formula from one of his ex-employees) he permits a couple of arsonists to move into his house. His excuse? "We must be friends with our enemies."
The arsonists, Schmitz (John Acorn) and Billy (Ron Bottitta), are a couple of hilarious rogues -- a Beckettian tramp and a liveried headwaiter -- who literally charm Biedermann to death. Mixed into the story are a band of Keystone Kop-like firemen, two goofy policemen, a Professor of Philosophy (Alan Abelew), and Mrs Knechtling (Chantal DeGroat), the widow of the wronged ex-employee.
Frisch's attack on the way we foolishly accommodate and befriend our enemies is played in broad comedic fashion by KOAN, "a collaborative 'process' functioning within the larger Odyssey organization." The Arsonists is an unsubtle, literal and sometimes less-than-credible allegory, but it's also quite funny and entertaining. Sossi's staging -- and some of the stage effects -- are big plusses as well.
