UC Berkeley’s Theater, Dance and Performance Studies department burns down the house with lively performance of ‘The Arsonists’ (The Daily Californian)

There is a fine line that has to be walked when performing “The Arsonists,” Max Frisch’s 1953 play. Originally written for radio, the play is a comedy — it needs to bring up its own zaniness to make its audience laugh. At the same time, it needs to bring a clarifying realism to its sobering themes and content. This line was acknowledged but shifted by UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies, or TDPS, whose take on the play about complicity and ideology tends toward the comedic but faces some uneven tonal shifts.