In Le Sommet, Swiss director Christoph Marthaler brings together six eccentric figures in a remote mountain refuge, crafting a surreal, visually inventive comedy tinged with absurdity. Set in a meticulously detailed wooden chalet, the play opens with a jarring image: a jagged rock protruding from the floor, already unsettling the audience’s expectations. The tone is set further when the first character emerges unexpectedly from a trapdoor beneath a bench — an entry as strange as it is theatrical.
The ensemble, clad in early 20th-century bourgeois mountaineering attire, blend into the muted tones and heights of the four-metre-tall set. The set itself — a fully realized mountain hut — is both a playground and a character in its own right. With trick shelves, malfunctioning devices, a faux fireplace, and a hidden dumbwaiter-like lift, the space becomes a key engine for the show’s comic rhythms.
Marthaler leans heavily into physical comedy, absurdist dialogue, and musical interludes. At its best, the production offers a clever, fast-paced interplay of sound, slapstick, and surrealism. The precise choreography and technical discipline of the six performers create moments of genuine amusement, particularly in scenes involving musical improvisation and beatboxing. The comedic beats arrive as sharp interruptions, forming an intricate rhythm rather than a coherent narrative arc.
Yet as the show progresses, the structure reveals its limits. The repetition of comedic cycles — which at first seem clever and tightly constructed — eventually becomes monotonous. The sense of entrapment begins to affect the audience as well as the characters. One starts to question whether the tedium is deliberate — a mirror of bureaucratic or diplomatic inertia — or simply a result of narrative stasis.
The plot is elusive. Are these characters caricatures of Europe’s political, media, or economic elites? Their nationalities vary, and their inability to communicate (except via music) suggests some larger breakdown — a Babel-like metaphor, perhaps. A voiceover announces that a landslide has isolated the chalet for “fifteen to eighteen years,” evoking environmental catastrophe and a world in crisis just outside their absurdly insulated setting.
Hints of contemporary relevance arise — a snippet from a European Parliament speech, a sense of post-climatic entrapment — but they are never fully developed. The characters engage in trivial small talk and social niceties, mimicking the etiquette of a bygone aristocracy, which feels oddly out of sync with the hinted present (or even future) beyond the walls.
This temporal dissonance — the clash between outdated bourgeois posturing and the looming outside world — could have sparked poignant or provocative reflection. Instead, it creates a frustrating disconnect. The result is a comedy that never quite lands its satirical punches. The production flirts with themes of political absurdity and institutional paralysis but never commits enough to provoke or disturb.
In the end, Le Sommet gestures toward being a satire of international summits or a critique of European democracy, but its ambiguity lacks bite. What could have been a subversive fusion of burlesque, absurd theatre, and musical invention remains vague and ultimately harmless. The audience is left with intriguing stagecraft and moments of invention — but also with a sense of detachment, waiting for meaning that never fully arrives.
FRENCH RÉSUMÉ
Christoph Marthaler installe six personnages farfelus dans un refuge de montagne au décor imposant et plein de malice, devenu le principal ressort comique grâce à une mécanique burlesque aussi précise qu’absurde. Si les premières scènes séduisent par leur rythme et leurs trouvailles sonores, Le Sommet s’enlise vite dans une boucle de gags répétitifs qui finit par étouffer l’ensemble.
Sous ses airs de satire des élites européennes coupées du monde et piégées dans une crise climatique fictive, le spectacle peine à formuler un propos cohérent. Le décalage entre le décor rétro et les allusions à un monde contemporain ou futuriste ne produit aucun effet de sens, laissant le spectateur face à une caricature floue, dont le comique trop diffus échoue à être subversif — et dont la liberté d’interprétation devient peu à peu synonyme d’ennui.
Festival d’Avignon
La Fabrica
Until July 17th 2025
Christoph Marthaler
Switzerland / Created in 2025
Running time : 2 hours
Cast includes: Liliana Benini, Charlotte Clamens, Raphael Clamer, Federica Fracassi, Lukas
Metzenbauer, Graham F. Valentine
Dramaturgy Malte Ubenauf
Scenography Duri Bischoff
Production Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, Piccolo Teatro di Milano Teatro d’Europa, MC93
Maison de la culture de Seine-Saint-Denis
Photo credit : Christophe Raynaud de Lage / Festival d'Avignon