Playwright: Max Frisch, adapted by Alistair Beaton. At: Strawdog Theatre Company, 3829 N. Broadway. Tickets: 866-811-4111; www.strawdog.org; $28. Runs through: Sept. 27
The most reliable tool for gulling foolish citizens, says one of pyromaniacs lending Max Frisch's cautionary tale its title, is the unvarnished truth—"because no one ever believes it." The irony of his observation is illustrated with unflinching accuracy by the example of Gottlieb Biedermann, a humble hero no better or worse than average.
Of course, definitions of "average" may differ widely. Though the prosperous hair-tonic manufacturer professes to be an upstanding member of his community, he thinks nothing of discharging the inventor of his money-making product, leaving the latter's family destitute, and forcing his former employee to suicidal despair. Unconcerned with the welfare of his peers, even to shrugging off news of mysterious fires breaking out within his city, Biedermann is more annoyed than alarmed when a homeless man turns up at his door and quickly secures himself a berth in his host's attic. Soon another vagrant arrives, along with several barrels of gasoline, bundles of kindling, a spool of fuse-wire and a detonation device. When the uneasy homeowner proposes to eject the intruders, they remind him that he is not innocent of crimes against society.
At the play's premiere in 1958, audiences immediately recognized Hitler as the perpetrator of the coming holocaust, but the propensity of otherwise blameless citizens to ignore imminent threats is a universal human flaw. Later productions have identified the Atomic Bomb or Global Warming as the encroaching evil, and political parties have assigned blame for Biedermann's indecision upon liberal idealism ( as if genuine convictions, and not hypocrisy, were his ultimate undoing ). Indeed, late in the play, Biedermann addresses the audience, demanding of us, "When did you guess? What would you have done—and when?"
However astute ( not to mention timely ) its moral, a sermon as didactic as Frisch's needs additional spectacle to hold our attention for 90 intermissionless minutes. Director Matt Hawkins has enlisted a technical team to surround us with thunderstorms, smoke, sirens and the ominous roar of rising flames. More important, he has instructed his actors to adopt individual idiosyncrasies for their characters, rendering always coherent even such cryptic conventions as a classical-Greek chorus of firefighters who lament their inability to do their job when people like Biedermann exacerbate the danger through selfish denial. ( Also indicted for his complicity is a "Doctor of Philosophy" who attempts to impose a manifesto upon wanton hooliganism, only to recoil in horror at the discovery that "they do it because they like it!" ) Whatever may disturb your sleep nowadays, you can't say you weren't warned.
