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Firebugs
By Max Frisch
Directed by Scott Alan Evans
November 20 to 22, 2004
Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St, NYC
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| CAST/CREW |
Simon Jones
Gottlieb Biedermann
Joel Hurt Jones
Fireman 2
Kelly Hutchinson
Fireman 4
Jefferson Slinkard
Joseph Schmitz
Francesca Di Mauro
Babette
Sean Arbuckle
Willie Eisenring
Kelly Hutchinson
Widow Knechtling
Dawn Dunlop
Production Stage Manager
Elizabeth Payne
Costume Consultant & Designer
Mary Louise Geiger
Lighting Designer
Carol Rosegg Production Photographer |
| PRESS |
Playbill
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Voice.com
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| DRAMATURGY |
Debuted in Germany: 1958
Premiered Off-Broadway: February 11, 1963 (41 years since last major production in NYC ? excluding Off-Off Broadway production in 2002 by the Colleagues Theatre Company at the Neighborhood Playhouse)
During the twentieth century, German-speaking Switzerland produced numerous writers who became famous far beyond its borders. Among those the prolific novelist, playwright and diarist, Max Frisch, ranks high in international acclaim. His texts have been translated into many languages, and his plays remain in the repertoire of theatres around the globe to this day. Frisch?s ?uvre has long become part of the modernist ?canon? for students of literature on all continents. With his finger on the pulse of his time, Frisch examined the debates and crises in post-war Europe and beyond. He wrote about fashionable, even trendy themes, but his texts are inscribed with the timeless substance of human experience.
Max Rudolf Frisch was born in Zurich on May 15, 1911 as the second child of the architect Franz Bruno Frisch and Karoline Frisch (n?e Wildermuth). His paternal grandfather had immigrated from Austria, the maternal ancestors from Germany. After he graduated from high school, Frisch enrolled at Zurich University in the winter of 1930 as a student of literature, art history and philosophy.
His father?s sudden death in 1932 forced Frisch to abandon his studies and find work to support his family. He became a freelance journalist for several newspapers where he wrote travel reports, local columns and literary critiques. He visited Prague, Greece, Turkey and Hungary. He also began writing fiction. He was displeased with his early works, the novel J?rg Reinhart. Eine sommerliche Schicksalsfahrt [J?rg Reinhart: A Fateful Trip in Summer, 1934], and the narrative Antwort aus der Stille [Response from Silence, 1937] and he destroyed the manuscripts. With a friend?s financial support, he enrolled in the Eidgen?ssische Technische Hochschule in Zurich to study architecture and he received his diploma in 1941. Upon graduation, Frisch joined a Zurich architects? firm. His design for a public swimming pool won a competition and enabled him to open his own office the following year. In the same year, 1942, Frisch was married to Constanze von Meyenburg. However, soon he felt uneasy in his ?bourgeois marriage,? subsequently separated from his wife in 1954 and was divorced in 1959. Similarly, his career in architecture proved unfulfilling. Frisch continued to write and in 1942 he had produced his second novel J?adore ce qui me br?le oder Die Schwierigen [I Adore What Burns Me, or Difficult Persons, 1943.
Kurt Hirschfeld, director at the Zurich Schauspielhaus, encouraged Frisch to write for the stage, and he completed his first drama, Santa Cruz in 1944. It is a play about the interplay between reality and dream, depicting human beings locked in their destinies and longing for a different life ? a theme that would recur many times in his work. Frisch?s second play, however, Nun singen sie wieder. Versuch eines Requiems [Now They are Singing Again: Attempt at a Requiem, 1945], breaks with the escapist themes of his earlier works and turns to the realities of the hour: the horrors of war, racism, fascism, and their devastating effect on humanity. The text conveys a powerful feeling of grief for the victims and a poignant plea for pacifism. The style of these works was much inspired by Bertolt Brecht: the two authors met in person in 1947, but Frisch had been familiar with Brecht?s work earlier. Later, Frisch would depict his friendship with Brecht in his diaries, Tagebuch 1948-1949 and Tagebuch 1966-1971.
In his next play, Die chinesische Mauer [The Chinese Wall, 1947, rev. 1955, 1965, 1973], Frisch turned to the nuclear threat to humanity: a timely topic also treated in plays by Brecht, D?rrenmatt and others. The following drama, Als der Krieg zu Ende war [When War was Finished, 1949], is an ?historical play? about a German woman who falls in love with a Soviet occupation soldier while her Nazi husband is hidden in the cellar.
In 1954 Frisch closed his architect?s office and fully devoted himself to writing. Meanwhile, encouraged by his stage success, Frisch had returned to the novel. His three major novels, Stiller [I?m not Stiller, 1954], Homo faber. Ein Bericht [Homo Faber: A Report, 1957] and Mein Name sei Gantenbein [A Wilderness of Mirrors, 1964], can be read as a trilogy connected by the recurring motif of their (male) protagonists? struggles with the immutability of their respective biographies.
It was not until 1958 though, that he grew internationally famous with his play, Herr Biedermann und die Brandstifter [The Firebugs.] In that same year, he was awarded the prestigious Georg-Buchner Prize and met Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann. Their relationship ended in the early 1960s. It was during their relationship when Frisch had one of his most productive periods as a playwright and wrote one of his most famous plays, Andorra. Andorra was such a success that in 1963, it was performed in 53 different German cities.
A late drama, Triptychon [Triptych, 1978, rev. 1980], reminiscent of Jean-Paul Sartre?s Huis clos [No Exit] and Les jeux sont faits [The Chips are Down], explores the questions of re-writing one?s life after death, of ?permutations? thereafter, but also of the inevitable repetition of previous mistakes in the netherworld. Theatrically effective and bleak in its tone, the play delivers a fitting coda to Frisch?s ?dramaturgy of permutation?. Max Frisch?s final years brought him a multitude of honors (honorary doctorates and prizes from universities and governments in the USA and Europe). His public presence remained strong: he attended, among other functions, the 1987 Moscow peace congress presided by Mikhail Gorbachev and delivered a fervent plea for a future in peace and without ideological strife.
In 1990 he was diagnosed with cancer, and he died in Zurich on April 4, 1991. In one of his last speeches he once more emphasized his unflagging belief in peace ?as the only option for the survival of humanity?.
THE FIREBUGS
On the international stage, Herr Biedermann und die Brandstifter (1958), and Andorra became Frisch?s most successful and enduring plays. Both share an ?open? parable form patterned after Brecht?s epic theater. Influenced by Thornton Wilder, Biedermann was actually based on a radio drama Frisch had written in 1953. An historical-political play about the rise of fascism and the self-destructive complacency of the bourgeoisie unable to recognize imminent doom, Biedermann was met with great success on the German-language stage and was also performed in the Netherlands, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Finland, Israel, Sweden, France and Spain. It was produced in London in 1961 as The Fire Raisers and Off-Broadway in New York in 1963 at the Maidman Theatre under the title The Firebugs, in a production directed by Gene Frankle. Interestingly, New Yorkers had the opportunity to see both these Frisch dramas that season. Andorra was playing on Broadway at the same time as The Firebugs was downtown.
TACT NYC
Nov. 2004
SELECTED WORKS
J?rg Reinhart, 1934
Antwort aus der Stille, 1937
J'adore ce qui me br?le; oder, Die Schwierigen, 1943
Nun singen sie wieder, 1945 - Now They Sing Again: Attempt at Requiem
Santa Cruz, 1947
Die Chinesische Mauer, 1947 - The Chinese Wall
Tagebuch mit Marion, 1947
Als der Krieg zu Ende war, 1949 - As the War Was Over
Tagebuch 1946-1949, 1950
Graf ?derland, 1951
Herr Biedermann und die Brandstifter, 1953 (radio play; The Firebugs / The Fire Raisers, rewritten in 1958 for television and stage)
Rip van Winkle, 1953
Stiller, 1954
Der Laie und die Architektur, 1954
Herr Quixote, 1955
Eine Lanze fur die Freiheit, 1955 A Lance for Freedom
Homo faber, 1957
Die grosse Wut des Philipp Hotz, 1958 - The Great Fury of Philipp Hotz
Schniz, 1959
Andorra, 1961
Ausgew?hlte Prosa, 1961
St?cke, 1962 (2 vols.)
Mein Name sei Gantenbein, 1964
Z?rich-Transit, 1966 (screenplay)
Biografie, 1967 - Biography
Erinnerungen an Brecht, 1968
Dramaturgisches, 1969
Wilhelm Tell fur die Schule, 1971
Tagebuch 1966-1971, 1972
Montauk, 1975
Triptychon, 1978 - Triptych
Der Traum des Apothekers von Locarno, 1978
Der Mensch erscheint im Holoz?n, 1979 - Man in the Holocene
Blaubart, 1982
Forderungen des Tages. Portraits, Skizzen, Reden 1943-1982, 1983
Gesammelte Werke in zeitlicher Folge, 1976-1986
Schweiz ohne Armee? Ein Palaver, 1989 |
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