LOS ANGELES -- Max Frisch's scathing political satire, The Firebugs, concludes its extended run at Los Angeles' Eclectic Company Theatre through Nov. 13. The show opened Sept. 17 for what was to be a five-week run. EC company member Brian Pope, last seen in the theatre's production of Dear Mrs. Baker, directs.

The Swiss-born Frisch originally titled his play Biermann and the Firebugs -- A Morality Play Without a Moral and wrote it as a parable of European complacency during the rise of Hitlerism. The story deals with a self-involved, bourgeois pillar of society named Biedermann. When his town becomes threatened by firebugs, he is outraged that nothing is being done to stop them. At the same time, he is unable to take action against two sinister hoods who take up residence in his attic. The underlying theme of the metaphorical drama is that everyone is complicit in his own destruction.

Frisch was an architect by profession and a writer by avocation. His 1995 novel, "I'm Not Stiller," was an international bestseller and made him famous. Among his other plays are The Chinese Wall and Andorra. He died in 1991 at the age of 80.

The Eclectic Company Theatre is located at 5312 Laurel Canyon Blvd., North Hollywood.

-- By Willard Manus
Southern California Correspondent