Big Bang

Welcome to a theater about Barbro Alving!

In 1956, Bang was imprisoned for a month at Långholmen prison, convicted of civil defense refusal. The performance starts with prison life but intercuts with flashbacks over her journalistic and pacifist development from 1928 until she ends up at Långholmen. We join her as she reports from the Berlin Olympics in 1936, through the pacifist awakening during the Spanish Civil War, her pacifist doubts during the Finnish Winter War 1939-40, her meeting with Gandhi just as India is about to gain independence from Britain, to when her life’s mentor Elin Wägner dies in 1949 – which makes her a staunch pacifist. So much so that Bang chooses to go to prison for her cause.

Big Bang! is a clever and accessible performance, while at the same time we do not shy away from the seriousness of her shattering experiences of war and injustice.

The performance aims to infect the audience with Bang’s liberating belief in herself, her challenging of conventions and unwavering conviction that we are all equal, and, without being preachy, see parallels to the world today. Bang’s legacy, of how one individual’s courage and commitment/activism can make a difference in society, should echo in the audience when they go home.