It is odd how great works of literature can reinvent themselves in a way in which an author could never have imagined and continue to pose questions of contemporary, and contentious, issues. A lifetime ago, this writer had a very small role in an Irish-language version of a play by the Swiss dramatist, Max Frisch (1911-1991), called in German, Biedermann und die Brandstifter or Biedermann and the Arsonists. It has been produced in English too as The Firebugs.
The production was am-dram in the days before TG4 and Netflix when we all had to make our own fun. That said, we did thread the boards in Belfast, Donegal, Limerick and, wait for it, one night in Dublin. (Ah, the big lights!) Thankfully, no one thought to record it – were there even video recorders in those days? – and my wooden acting will never be uploaded to YouTube.
The play was first staged in 1958 in Frisch’s native Zürich and has been on the go ever since in various forms. Gottlieb Biedermann is the lead character; his wife Babette and two others, Schmitz, a former wrestler, and Eisenring, a former waiter, make up the rest of the main cast. It is set in an unnamed city which is being gradually burnt to the ground by arsonists, for reasons unknown, and the police are unable to catch them.
Biedermann is a successful businessman – a big cheese in Swiss terms – very much on the side of law and order and not a little hard hearted. Indeed, an unkind person might characterise Biedermann as a bit of a Swiss Blue Shirt. Critics, better educated than this writer, suggest the drama examines totalitarianism. Frisch was well able to see the rise of Fascism and Communism from his perch in Zürich and note how gas chamber and gulag destroyed millions of people. Each of his characters might represent both enforcement and acquiescence in public life and their consequences – we can certainly spot familiar behaviours and attitudes in Irish life today.
Biedermann has few qualms about flexing his muscle when needed, callously dispensing with the services of a long-term and loyal employee, Knechtling, caring nothing for what becomes of him and those who depend on him. That said, he is not such a hard man when confronted by people who are just a little harder and, indeed, wilier than him.
Enter Schmitz who gains entry into Biedermann’s home by badgering the helpless maid, Anna. Rather than call the police immediately to have him thrown out, Biedermann feels obligated to offer a drink. Biedermann is nothing if not well mannered, you see, social rules cannot be ignored. The drink is soon accompanied with a little food as Schmitz tells Biedermann his sob story: he is of working-class stock; he was a circus wrestler; he is unemployed; he is homeless.
He is also, quietly, immovable. He has sized Biedermann up and knows that he can subdue him by turning Biedermann’s bourgeois sensibilities, and lack of courage, against him. He does not want a room to sleep in and is happy to bunk down in the attic; he is used to sleeping on the floor. Biedermann acquiesces, just for one night, and makes the offer without telling his wife. That said, he is brave enough to ask Schmitz to tell him that he is not an arsonist. Schmitz evades the question. Biedermann carries on with his cowardice the next day, leaving his wife Babette, to send Schmitz, unsuccessfully, on his way.
Schmitz is soon joined by a companion, Eisenring, and together, they begin piling up drums of petrol in Biedermann’s loft. Schmitz worries that Biedermann will call the police but Eisenring simply says he will not: “Because he himself is culpable/punishable.” Amazingly, Biedermann catches them in the act but still refuses to raise the alarm, even when they tell him that the drums are full of petrol.
Biedermann changes tack, wines and dines them both, in the hope that he will escape his fate. In a moment of supreme black comedy – very, very Belfast – Eisenring asks Biedermann for matches. Babette berates him for handing them over but Biedermann brushes her concerns aside, as he has done from the start, saying that no real arsonist would be without matches. One fire is soon followed by another and then explosions sound in the background.
(Explosions, by the way, are no laughing matter. This writer was once in a building adjacent to a British army fort in Belfast when the IRA launched a home-made mortar at them. It is not a nice thing to be so close to an explosion like that. Violence on such a scale is truly terrifying, whether it be started by a mortar or, one imagines, with matches.)
The characters of Schmitz and Eisenring are drawn in such a way as to leave the audience wondering what motivates them. Are they left-wing or right-wing? Are left and right in this context just the same? Schmitz is the muscle, that is clear, and Eisenring the brains, two activists working in tandem to destroy that which is not theirs.
Biedermann too is grotesque. He knows the city in which he lives faces extreme danger from arsonists but fails to act and protect his wife and home when confronted by a stranger. He prevaricates, hides behind his good manners and misleads his wife. All the evidence points to Schmitz and Eisenring’s ill intent and still, still, he hands them over matches in the vain hope that he has bought them off with some food and wine.
Pity too poor Babette, betrayed by a politician’s promise to do one thing but then doing something else: “My man, Gottlieb, has promised me that he personally would go up to the attic every night and personally ensure that there was no arsonist there. I am grateful to him. Otherwise I could not sleep half the night long…”
Food for thought but, remember, it is only a play.