Theatre in Switzerland

There are some 30 established municipal theatres which attract audiences of about 1.5 million per year, while the audience figure for the 300 or so venues on the independent scene is as much as 1.7 million. Almost 900 amateur groups are listed throughout Switzerland, with audience figures of 1.2 million. In Switzerland, therefore, it is not only the large municipal theatres with secure financial backing which are important, as tends to be the case in other countries. Alongside the independent scene, which has experienced a boom since the 1970s, amateur theatre in particular has developed in a manner that is very specific to Switzerland.

On the one hand, the vitality of the theatre landscape is linked to federalism, which is assiduously cultivated in Switzerland. It is also related to the multilingual nature of the country. Each linguistic region has its own theatres. Their repertoires and productions tend to be oriented more towards foreign countries where the same language is spoken than to the other Swiss regions. German-speaking Switzerland therefore looks to Germany and Austria, the Ticino focuses on Italy and the French-speaking region relates to France.

Figures in the Swiss-German theatre

Contemporary figures of international renown on the Swiss-German theatre scene include Christoph Marthaler. Born in 1951 near Zurich, he is a theatre musician and director. From 2000 until 2004, he was the director of the Zurich Schauspielhaus, which was chosen twice as theatre of the year during this period. Works by contemporary authors such as Maja Beutler, Thomas Hürlimann and Matthias Zschokke have been produced at the Zurich Schauspielhaus.
Lukas Bärfuss has worked since 1997 as a freelance writer and has also been the resident dramatic advisor at the Zurich Schauspielhaus. He was a co-founder of the 400asa group of artists. Bärfuss wrote several pieces for this group including the grotesque Meienbergs Tod (Meienberg's Death) about the journalist Niklaus Meienberg. He scored a major success with his play Die sexuellen Neurosen unserer Eltern (Our parents' sexual neuroses), which he wrote for Theater Basel. In 2010, his play Malaga was staged by Barbara Frey and premiered at the Zurich Schauspielhaus. Barbara Frey has been the director of the Zurich Schauspielhaus since 2009. Since then, she has staged plays such as Fegefeuer in Ingolstadt (Purgatory in Ingolstadt) by Marieluise Fleisser, Platonov by Anton Chekhov, Leonce and Lena by Georg Büchner and Richard III by William Shakespeare. She also produced an Edgar Allan Poe project entitled A Dream Within a Dream, The Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen and The Misanthrope by Molière, as well as a short work entitled Die schwarze Halle (The black hall) by Lukas Bärfuss, part of Arm und Reich – Drei neue Stücke (Poor and rich – Three new pieces). Frey opened the 2013/14 season with her production of The Trial by Franz Kafka. One of the regular guests at the Zurich Schauspielhaus is Stefan Kägi with the Rimini Protokoll group. Kägi grew up in Solothurn and is one of the three co-founders of this group whose work focuses on the continuing development of theatre as a medium, in order to open up unconventional perspectives on our reality. Rimini Protokoll stages documentary theatre works, radio plays and city-specific productions in a variety of combinations all over the world.

Important theatres

Apart from the Schauspielhaus, the Theater Neumarkt in Zurich is another prominent venue following its relaunch a year ago. Its co-directors Barbara Weber and Rafael Sanchez may be considered as representatives of a generation of the independent scene that is now settling down in permanent theatres after years of travelling around in this country and abroad. Another pillar of the Swiss and international independent scene is the Gessnerallee Theatre, which has gained prominence under Niels Ewerbeck and has become a major international coproduction partner in its own right. New voices can be heard around University of the Arts, such as the Far A Day Cage troupe headed by director Tomas Schweigen and the young director and musician Thomas Luz. Opting for new forms and stage languages can also offer a way for smaller municipal theatres to resist the pull of the major metropolitan centres. This path is followed, for instance, by the Joint City Theatre of Biel and Solothurn, which engages young directors and dramatists (who are promoted very efficiently in Switzerland by educational models such as the "Drama Processor" training scheme). This was how Feindmaterie (Hostile Matter) by Drama Processor graduate Simon Froehling came to be premiered in Solothurn in 2008, in a production by the equally promising young director Jan Philipp Gloger.

Figures in the French-speaking theatre in Switzerland

Pride of place in French-speaking Switzerland goes to the Théatre Vidy-Lausanne in the idyllic Max Bill Building on the shore of Lake Geneva. This innovative Lausanne institution has now become firmly integrated into professional theatre life in France, and its tours and co-productions (with Heiner Goebbels, Stefan Kaegi, Metzger/Zimmermann/de Perrot) have taken it to pan-European eminence. Other noteworthy venues are the Théâtre Le Poche with its progressive and socially committed programmes, and the Théâtre du Grütli – which, like the Forum Meyrin and the Arsenic in Lausanne, has become established as a centre for experimental and avant-garde theatre. Another example is the theatre in the small and elegant Geneva suburb of Carouge, relaunched under its young director Jean Liermier, which is becoming noticed for its updated versions of the classics: Voltaire, Musset, Molière and Marivaux in imaginative and entertaining interpretations. Classics are actually a niche in the Geneva theatrical landscape, given that the large Comédie theatre and the smaller Théâtre Le Poche and Forum Meyrin focus explicitly on contemporary authors.

Theatre in Ticino and Romansh-speaking Switzerland

Ticino and Romansh-speaking Switzerland have no major public theatres but there are some independent theatre groups. Major impetus for the Ticino theatre scene is generated by the Dimitri Theatre School in Verscio founded by Dimitri, the famous clown and pantomime artist. Of great importance is the Compagnia Finzi Pasca with theatre techniques known to them as "teatro della carezza"; staging both large and small performances (from monologue to Olympic ceremony) while uniting theatre, opera, lyrics, clowning, acrobatics, music as well as dance and cinema.
Live performances also take place in Ticino dialect: the best-known venue for these is the Teatro popolare della Svizzera italiana. The first permanent Romansh theatre in Romansh-speaking Switzerland was established a few years ago in Riom Castle (canton of Graubünden). The castle theatre was recently awarded the Hans Reinhart Ring, the "Oscar" of Swiss theatre. Also in the Romansh-speaking area, the Cumpagnia da Teater Laax (an amateur theatre group) gives an open-air performance once every ten years: practically the entire village takes part in this event in one way or another. In 2009, Bruno Cathomas, the internationally renowned actor who was born in Laax, staged a lavish production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in a Romansh version by the Graubünden writer Leo Tuor.

Cellar theatres and cabaret

Cabaret has an extensive tradition in Switzerland, alongside the world of the established theatre. Switzerland's cabaret scene has enjoyed high esteem across the continent for over 30 years. In the 1970s, an important part in the evolution of this scene was played by the city of Berne with its cellar theatres in the historic centre.
The Künstlerbörse (Artists' Exchange) came into being only a few years later: artists and impresarios from Switzerland and abroad still come together at this event once every year. The Artists' Exchange has become an international rendezvous for the cabaret scene. More than one third of the productions presented (which now go beyond the scope of classical cabaret) originate from abroad.

Further links

The Union of Swiss Theatres (UST)