On Stage: Performing Arts on Our Oneonta Campuses by Rachel Frick Cardelle
'The Firebugs:' A Dark Comedy About Setting Your House on Fire
The Firebugs,” directed by John McCaslin-Doyle and written by Swiss author Max Frisch, comes to SUNY Oneonta’s stage this week. The show, first performed as a radio play in 1953 and then as a stage play in 1958, is a dark comedy about the ways we all can too easily look away when danger and destruction creep too close to home.
When I first heard the name of this play, it brought back one of my strongest childhood memories. I must have been 5 years old, playing with my friend Laurie behind our farmhouse in upstate New York. Her older brother, Stevie, came running to us with a treasure trove: a box of matches. He wanted to show us how to build a fire.
We collected a bunch of twigs and some hay from the barn and hid between our hedge and the house. We did think to have two plastic pails of water to douse the fire. Since the game became building bigger and bigger fires, dousing them and starting again, this experiment quickly spun out-of-control. The three of us formed a fireman’s brigade between the fire and the hose on the other side of the house, scurrying to put out the growing flames using our plastic pails. I remember when my babysitter, Sandy, came out on the porch and asked me, as I flew by with the blue pail of water, what was happening. “Nothing!” I assured her.
Long story short, Sandy didn’t buy it, quickly assessed the situation, and put the fire out before we burned my house down. When my father got home, among other things, I learned the term “firebug.” It was a painful lesson. So that’s why, when I opened the script for “The Firebugs,” I expected to read a story about some young scamps, or troubled teens. That’s not what this show is about.
After reading “The Firebugs” script, then watching a rehearsal in which the cast was just coming off-book, I got to spend an hour in the Green Room chatting with some of the cast and crew.
