In July 2024, Downstage Left proudly presented The Arsonists* — by Swiss writer Max Frisch, translated into English by Alistair Beaton — a story about what happens when comfortable well-meaning people open the door and let evil flourish.
Biedermann is a successful business owner, master of her house, and an upstanding citizen. Just ask anyone, they’d all say so. But all that changes when she lets two suspicious strangers take up residency in her attic.
Could they be the arsonists who have been burning nearby towns to the ground? If so, what could they want from her house, conveniently situated in the middle of town? And, more importantly, what will she do about it?
Written in the aftermath of the Second World War, Max Frisch’s perennial satire of personal ethics and the weakness of respectability in the face of obvious evil has been brought up to date with a modern translation by Alistair Beaton.
Downstage Left’s sold out production of The Arsonists played at the Badhuistheater, Amsterdam from July 11-13
*The Arsonists is translated from the German: Biedermann und die Brandstifter. It is also known in English as The Firebugs or The Fire Raisers
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