SWITZERLAND

Director David Tarba

Scenography by Djaba Qurtishvili

Costumes Designer Djaba Qurtishvili

Composer Nika Kokhreidze

 

Cast: 

Nino Burduli, Zuka Papuashvili

Duration: 90 min, no intermission 

On tour – 6 persons.

 

Genre - Drama

The renowned American writer, known as the queen of thrillers, Patricia Highsmith, is 

experiencing a creative crisis. She is elderly and battling lung cancer. Highsmith isolates 

herself in the Swiss Alps, living in complete solitude. One morning she is visited by an 

unexpected guest: a young man sent by her publisher to convince her to write the final 

installment of her bestselling book series featuring the romanticized sociopath, master 

manipulator, and serial killer Tom Ripley. It becomes evident that the writer is grooming the 

charming guest for a terrifying mission. The play delves into the stream of consciousness and 

intellectual battle between these two individuals, which ultimately transforms into a deadly 

dance. Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith's renowned play "Switzerland" premiered 

in the Georgian Theater first time.

 

Review 

The play "Switzerland" by Joanna Murray-Smith, a well-known Australian playwright, writer and screenwriter 

who has already appeared in theater and cinema, is being staged in Georgia for the first time.

The theater on Athoneli is the very space where we often witness the preparation and absorption of modern 

Western or American dramaturgy. Director David Tarba filled the labyrinths of the work of the famous 

American writer, the "queen of thrillers" - Patricia Highsmith, and the "skeletons" hidden in her closet (more 

precisely, the knives in the play) with black irony and unexpected jazz improvisation.

A writer suffering from lung cancer (probably one of Nino Burduli's best roles in recent years), who is locked in 

his house in the Swiss Alps, is visited by a young man from a New York publishing house (Zuka Papuashvili).

He must convince an exhausted writer to write a sequel to his bestseller The Talented Mr. Ripley. The witty and 

intelligent game "Rock of Death" should end...