The Arsonists

The story is about Gottlieb Biedermann, who has gotten himself into some hot water. He is in conflict with his business partner of twelve years, at odds with the changing world around him, and struggling to maintain an idea of safety in his home as a spat of fires ravage through some of the more well-known locales of his modern American city. His wife Babette feels torn between her perception of the world around her and the reality of it, caught up in the love she has for her husband all the while being deceived by it. The infallibility of a grim ending becomes all too real when a stranger knocks on the door, asking simply for a bit of food and maybe a dry place to sleep. The play suggests that once a door has been knocked it has to be opened, eventually. What would you do for the one who had knocked?