The Firebugs
A play about Charity, Decency, and High Explosives.
4th Street Theater
111 E. Kellogg Blvd
Saint Paul
February 18 - March 6, 2005
Senseless acts of violence threaten to spread fire and fear like a burning cancer. The populace, meanwhile, sit idly by, clinging to moral platitudes as their world crumbles around them. No, it's not the War on Terror, it's The Firebugs, Max Frisch's deeply disturbing yet wickedly funny play presented by nimbus.
The Firebugs is a dark comedy about self-deception and moral flaccidity in the face of impending disaster. When, the play asks, do victims become accomplices to their own demise? In a town wracked by a string of arson attacks, the bourgeois socialites Christian and Babette Betterman allow two shady vagabonds to move into their attic. As it becomes increasingly obvious their guests are really firebugs, the spineless protagonists exhibit a political cluelessness and comic human despair that is strikingly relevant to our times.
Reviews of The Firebugs:
- St. Paul Pioneer Press: The arsonists' tale, with a screwball twist, by Christy DeSmith
- howwastheshow.com: The Firebugs by Max Frisch, by Miguel Trejo
Online Media Kit
Dramatis Personae
| Director: | Josh Cragun |
| Assistant Director/Stage Manager: | Kate Hanson |
| Assisant Stage Manager: | Cockroach |
| Costume Designer: | Emer Griffin |
| Lighting Designer: | Erik Hanson |
| Scenic Designer: | Liz Neerland |
| Sound Design: | Dustin Hansen |
| Christian Betterman: | Robert C. Hammel |
| Babbette: | Pam Kaufman |
| Anne: | Deanne McDonald |
| Joe Smite: | Jeremy S. Wendt |
| Willy Ironbar: | Brian O'Neal |
| Police Officer: | Shawn Boyd |
| Professor: | Phil Hall |
| Mrs. Underling: | Barbara Fitzgerald |
| Chorus Leader: | Derek Dirlam |
| Chorus of Firemen: | Shira Levenson, Barbara Fitzgerald, Tom Nechodomu, Shawn Boyd |
| Light and Sound BO: | Liz Neerland |
| Set crew: | Jane Murphy, Kate Hanson, Tom Erickson, Shira Levenson, Barbara Fitzgerald, Ed Tews, Dustin Hansen, Kari Larson, John Neerland, Matthew Hanson |
| Jack-of-all-Trades: | Tom Erickson |
| Photographer: | Bill Cameron |