Entering the theater, the audience is confronted with a typical southern German or Austrian chalet, its cross-section completely open toward the auditorium. Beneath a bench on stage lies a young actor dressed in traditional Austrian lederhosen. With his latest production, Christophe Marthaler once again returns to the Festival d’Avignon—remaining true to his distinctive style: collective creation, choral performance, and music.
Liliana Benini, Charlotte Clamens, Raphael Clamer, Federica Fracassi, Lukas Metzenbauer, and Graham F. Valentine appear one after another from an elevator, clad in Alpine attire: one in mountaineering gear, another in shirt and vest, yet another with a felt hat. They enter the chalet as if arriving for a “summit conference.” Is it a meeting room? A holiday home? Or a temporary supply station? The space remains deliberately ambiguous. But the behavior and voices of the six actors make clear: if they are to remain in this space together, it will require negotiation and cooperation.
The title Gipfel (“Summit”) refers not only to the mountain-shaped prop positioned at center stage but also to the peak of the Alps—and to the summit of power. In an interview, Marthaler outlined the agenda for this conference: 10:00 Fact-finding / 11:00 Fact evaluation / 12:00 Lunch break / 13:00 Polygraph test / 14:15 Press conference.[i]
The dramaturgy unfolds step by step: at first, everything resembles a group holiday—actors breakfast in the chalet designed by Duri Bischoff, change into sportswear, move into the sauna, and finally don formal dress to transform into heads of state. They speak in multiple tongues: Italian, German, Scottish English, and French, even Styrian, a regional Austrian dialect. Do they truly understand one another? In this ambiguous, shifting, multifunctional space, Marthaler juxtaposes texts from Kafka, the contemporary poet Christophe Tarkos, short prose by Arno Schmidt, philosophical fragments by Claudio Magris, speeches from the European Parliament, and the actors’ own improvisations.
Since the 1990s, Marthaler has worked collectively, establishing his so-called “Marthaler family.” Yet these “family members” are by no means fixed. He insists he cannot imagine always working with the same seven or eight people—that, for him, would be a fatal kind of “inbreeding.” His art instead thrives on new constellations, the particular chemistry, and the surprising sparks generated with different actors.
According to Marthaler and his collaborators, singing together is one of the greatest driving forces of collective work: “For a very long time we didn’t actually work at all; we simply came together and sang songs. That’s what’s so fascinating—you’re not really working, and yet an incredible amount is already emerging.” On the other hand, the chorus also requires “hard drill” and leads to a sobering realization: “that people are essentially autistic and not capable of doing anything truly collective.”[ii]
Collective creativity, at once constrained by order and rules—that is the formation of Marthaler’s theater. In this collective there are always drowsy individuals, loosely linked through “strange networks of communication,” who awaken only sporadically from their solitude. In Gipfel, the actors are at times perfectly synchronized: biting into Swiss croissants (Gipfeli) together, chanting “yes” and “no” in different tones and languages; and at times they drift into linguistic islands, where even if someone cries out, “You don’t understand anything!” the call remains unanswered.
Language and words in Marthaler’s work do not necessarily play a greater role than music. On this stage, which interrogates how humans coexist, he deconstructs the “summit”—the natural summit, the summit of power, the summit conference—through linguistic dissonance, music, and choral song. In the past, Marthaler often shied away from acknowledging the political implications of his work; this time, however, he does not conceal them but, through humor and satire, lays bare the hypocrisy of elite politics. And he poses a direct question to the audience: What, in fact, takes place on the way to the summit of power?
“I have always enjoyed observing how a group forms, how it organizes itself, and whether everyone can find their place,” Marthaler says of his vision of this “summit conference.”[iii]
Chalet, Austrian dialect, lederhosen, mountaineering gear, sauna, music—all these distinctly German-speaking elements recur throughout the piece, reminding me of the “German-language section” of the Berlinale. Those films are precisely crafted, often centered on the everyday life of the middle class, and frequently populated by characters with backgrounds as musicians, composers, or conductors. From the perspective of a French audience, will this production likewise be labeled “Germanic folklore”? When I saw Black and Asian faces among the spectators in Avignon, I could not help but wonder: can these viewers identify with the splendid Alpine costumes and white elite figures on stage? Is the theme of coexistence amid mutual incomprehension something that can only be staged in Europe? And if so, can these actors truly represent it?
Undeniably, with Gipfel Marthaler once again demonstrates his precise, almost clockwork stage elegance[iv]. Yet like the Swiss watch, it too seems to have become a symbol of class and distinction.
[i] Robert, Catherine. “Rendez-vous au ‘Sommet’, chez les grands de ce monde avec Christoph Marthaler, une épopée cocasse….” La Terrasse, no. 334, 20 June 2025, journal-laterrasse.fr/rendez-vous-au-sommet-chez-les-grands-de-ce-monde-avec-christoph-marthaler-une-epopee-cocasse/. Accessed 25 July 2025.
[ii] Kurzenberger, Hajo. “Theaterkollektive: Von der ‚Truppe 31‘ zur ‚Marthaler-Familie‘, von der Politisierung der 68er-Bewegung zur Privatisierung des Theatermachens in den Neunzigern.” Der kollektive Prozess des Theaters: Chorkörper – Probengemeinschaften – theatrale Kreativität, transcript Verlag, 2009, pp. 152–156.
[iii] “Interview with Christoph Marthaler and Malte Ubenauf.” Festival d’Avignon, festival-avignon.com/en/entretien-avec-christoph-marthaler-malte-ubenauf-352766. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025.
[iv] Robert, Catherine. “Rendez-vous au ‘Sommet’, chez les grands de ce monde avec Christoph Marthaler, une épopée cocasse….” La Terrasse, no. 334, 20 June 2025, journal-laterrasse.fr/rendez-vous-au-sommet-chez-les-grands-de-ce-monde-avec-christoph-marthaler-une-epopee-cocasse/. Accessed 25 July 2025.