Written by Max Frisch
Translated by Michael Bullock
Directed by Amy Gavin
HOPE MILL THEATRE
New Manchester company We Merry Dancers light their first theatrical torch with Max Frisch’s incendiary satire The Fire Raisers. Frisch’s parable about a complacent citizen who politely accommodates the arsonists clearly intent on burning down his house remains a deliciously cruel study of denial, civility, and the danger of looking away. A pertinent piece in todays increasingly uncertain political climate this lively, ambitious production leans into the play’s absurdist bite. Performances balance sly comedy with a impending sense of doom, allowing the humour to curdle gradually into something far darker. The central figure of Biedermann is played by Rupert Hill with just the right mixture of puffed-up respectability and blinking naivety, making his eagerness to appease the obvious villains both darkly comic and bewilderingly terrifying.
If the staging occasionally feels a little rough around the edges, the company’s ambition and enthusiasm is always evident. Frisch’s text is razor-edged and needs to be trusted to do its work. Under Amy Gavin’s direction, the production finds a rhythm between comedy and creeping dread. Gavin makes particularly canny use of music to shape the evening’s atmosphere. Musical cues slip in like a knowing wink, sometimes tightening the tension, sometimes puncturing it with a sly release, creating an ebb and flow that keeps the audience alert to the play’s satirical bite. All the main performances lean heavily in to caricature to ramp up the absurd nature of this piece. The stronger actors on stage make this work for a modern audience but some of the cast struggle to balance the demands of absurdist theatre without risking falling into more amateur dramatics territory.
However, the production stumbles with its use of the Chorus. Their choreographed movement feels clunky and oddly amateurish, momentarily pulling focus from the biting text rather than sharpening its commentary. Gavin uses the Chorus of firefighters to introduce current affairs links to this 1953 text. This may be an impassioned attempt to inform the audience but sometimes less really is more, and theatre-makers should trust their audiences to make the connections without guidance. What should feel like a stylised Greek chorus instead often lands as a slightly awkward interruption.
Even so, rough edges are perhaps inevitable in a company’s first outing. What shines through is ambition, intelligence and a clear appetite for politically alert theatre. If this debut is anything to go by, We Merry Dancers might be lighting a fire worth raising.
Live Art Alive 