NWC Theater Troupe Starts a Conversation with The Arsonists

On November 9, 10, and 11, Northwest Catholic High School in West Hartford mesmerized audiences with its production of Max Frisch’s The Arsonists.

Directors Sara Avery and Kate Morran, both teachers at the West Hartford high school, led the talented group of students in the production of this evocative, dark, and timely comedy. With the help of Costume Designer Linda Milton and Lighting Designer Will Sanders, Technical Director Rorie Fitzsimons, also a teacher at the school and recently retired Senior Technical Director of Undergraduate Production at Yale University, helped bring the message to light.

And light it sparked. Set in a town being attacked by arsonists, disguised door-to-door salesmen talk their way into people’s homes and settle down in their attics where they plan the destruction of the houses. The action centers around Mr. Biedermann (a name that loosely translates from the German to “Everyman”) and his sense of propriety and quest for belonging, even though it comes at a dangerous price.

Fitzsimons designed a set that could depict, at the same time, a living room and an attic with few distractions. The actors and their dialogue, set in front of charged images with stage lighting, loaded and striking, were prominent, rather than an elaborate stage. Besides a small burn pile off to the far edge to symbolize the violent fires, all eyes and ears beamed ahead. The purpose of the simple stage was to convey that this story could happen anywhere, even right here at home in 2018.

Director Sara Avery explained how the school’s Dramateurs are tackling social justice issues this year. She said their work is “to start conversations and ask questions about what it means to be responsible citizens of the world.” Co-director Kate Morran echoed Avery’s remarks, adding that this year’s goals also include more education underpinning the pieces and collaboration with colleagues. For example, Northwest Catholic Social Studies Teacher Joe Ohlheiser gave the actors lessons on fascism and the rise of totalitarianism in Western Europe during rehearsals.

Both directors quoted lines from the play as they discussed the powerful innuendoes in the script. The repeating question “don’t you trust us,” the obsequious and manipulative “it’s your house,” and the self-interested “thank goodness it isn’t here” smacked of events in history, even recent history, that audience members couldn’t ignore. Morran emphatically said of the characters in the play: “When you willfully ignore evil, evil prevails.”

Images were projected on a cyclorama in the back of Northwest Catholic’s secondary and more intimate theater, with accompanying songs chosen by Morran that spoke to the heated tensions that ignite when totalitarianism takes hold. Pictures of Pablo Picasso’s anti-war painting Guernica and Diego Rivera’s mural Pan American Unity Hitler are two examples of what the short-throw projector flung onto the screen as the Chorus delivered their gutsy lines in harmony.

When discussing Sarah Lazor’s performance as Chorus Leader, Avery used words like “exquisite,” “ferocious,” and “brave.” Lazor, a senior from West Hartford, has performed in all four fall plays during her tenure at Northwest Catholic. Morran recalled Lazor’s powerful indictment of Beidermann: “Knowing how inflammable the world is, what did you think?!”

Beidermann, played by Jordan Pita of Rocky Hill, a junior at the school, chooses pretense and crowd-pleasing over ending the violence. A gesture of ultimate capitulation and complicity is when Beiderman actually hands over the matches to the arsonists, played by Ben Stone-Zelman, a sophomore from West Hartford, and Riley Doerner, a senior from Enfield.

Doerner, who played Eisenring, said, “The Arsonists was different from other shows I’ve done at Northwest. The audience might not like what they saw because of the actors’ behaviors, but they were challenged.” Doerner went on to say this was her favorite show in her years at the school. “Even though Eisenring is bad, I liked playing a character who was so sure of herself.”

“Art is a conversation,” Avery concluded, and they had many conversations surrounding the play and its messages. The adults and the students producing this stirring story talked history, not politics. They talked universal truths and Catholic teachings, not dogma. They talked about what is good and right and safe and just.

To learn more about Northwest Catholic’s Dramateurs, visit northwestcatholic.org/the-arts. Northwest Catholic’s spring musical, Godspell, will be a very special 10 year anniversary production of the beloved story at Northwest Catholic. It will show March 29, 30, and 31, and the public is encouraged to attend.