The world may be starting to burn, but George Betterman has it all under control. He’s a respected member of his community with a loving wife and a flourishing business, so surely the arsonists will spare him. As an upstanding citizen, he’s even happy to do his civic duty by opening his home to two new guests… but when they start filling his attic with drums of gasoline, will the fire hit too close to home?
Written as a reflection on the rise of both Nazism and Communism, The Arsonists has uncanny new relevance today in light of the rise of populist nationalism around the globe. For Woolly’s incendiary take on Max Frisch’s classic comedy, artistic director Howard Shalwitz makes his long-awaited return to the Woolly stage, lighting the fuse on the theater’s 38th season.