There is a great timeliness to this revival of Max Frisch’s 1953 dark comedy, Biedermann and the Arsonists, about a dystopia in which firestarters are running amok. A city is ablaze and its authorities are on the chase for whoever is lighting the fires. The symbolism of oil drums on stage resonates deeply in our time of climate emergency.
Adapted by Simon Stephens and accompanied by Chris Thorpe’s songs, the plot shows how passivity fuels wrongdoing: Joseph Smith (Tommy Oldroyd), disguised as a homeless man in stripy prisoner’s clothing, inveigles himself into the home of the wealthy Trueman (Adam Owers) and his wife (Nadine Ivy Barr). Their middle-class, corruptly capitalist, guilt leads them to turn a blind eye to all the signs that an arsonist – and his sidekick (Angela Jones) – are living in their midst.
This might have become a powerful metaphor for the wilful blindness to climate catastrophe in some quarters of our world (there is a discussion with Just Stop Oil in one after-show talk), or even the western response to the situation in Gaza. The potential for seeing such real-world resonances is there, but the drama here lacks potency.
There is little world building – where are we and what are the motives of these arsonists? – and the absurdism does not come alive, feeling too much like contrived kookiness. The songs seem shoehorned in rather than evolved out of the drama, although there are lively performances by the young actors from represent theatre company.
Directed by Abigail Graham, a drummer (Lucy Yates) and guitarist (Aaron Douglas) stand in for Frisch’s Greek chorus of firefighters. They emanate indie-band cool and create foley sounds too which are comic (loud munching when Smith is eating food) although they repeat that joke. But the songs, at best, sound samey, while the weakest are soporific.
Characters are cartoonish, which works well for Smith as a comic-book baddie but Trueman’s switch from outraged homeowner to acquiescent ally to the interlopers in his attic does not seem credible or coherent.
There are efforts at Pinteresque menace (with some resemblance to The Birthday Party, written four years after Frisch’s play) but those too are under-charged. When the fires burn and the sirens begin to wail, we do not feel the urgency.
• Trueman and the Arsonists is at the Roundhouse, London, until 8 November.
