Since the 1990s, Swiss theatre director and former stage composer Christoph MARTHALER has been known for his works which use music in a unique form. For each projects, his production team, including a stage designer, a dramaturge and actors/singers/musicians, first discuss particular themes, while eating and drinking for ten days or more. This is the important first phase, which MARTHALER calls “the process of fermentation”. This process develops into the practice of a chorus. As MARTHALER's set doesn't have large exits, the performers can easily form a chorus on set. They sing the chorus, sometimes they sing also as solo singers, often with alienations such as laughing and coughing during singing. By using these alienations, MARTHALER caricatures the contemporary people in particular social categories.

This scheme has also been implemented in MARTHALER's production Riesenbutzbach (2009). However, there was a remarkable difference to MARTHALER's past works. On the set entitled “Institut für Gärungsgewerbe (Institute for fermentation),” the figures say their lines often as monologues which express their state after the Lehman Shock. The caricatured people are representatives of the enormous number of ordinary people after the worldwide financial crisis. In this “Institute for fermentation”, the figures could be in the process of vanishing. This reflects probably the anxiety of the ordinary people, including a part of the audience and perhaps also the members of MARTHALER's team.