This event is part of the Geneva Peace Week
Big Bang! is a theatre performance about the Swedish war time journalist Barbro "Bang" Alving (1909-1987). The play explores what it means to be a pacifist in a time of military escalation and to live an unconventional life in a conservative society, all while highlighting Bang’s remarkable legacy as a journalist.
We follow Bang from her breakthrough at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, through her heartbreaking eyewitness reports from the Spanish Civil War, to her pivotal role in awakening Swedish solidarity with Finland during the Soviet invasion of 1939. She also reported from Nazi-occupied Denmark and Norway, ultimately arriving in Hiroshima in the aftermath of the atomic bomb — an experience that turned her into a committed pacifist, to the point of serving prison time for her beliefs. In 1956 she spent time in Långholmen Prison.
Big Bang! is witty and accessible, yet unafraid to confront the emotional weight of war and injustice. Alongside Bang herself, the audience encounters a range of characters from her life journey, including Gandhi, Hitler, Elin Wägner, Neville Chamberlain, fellow women prisoners at Långholmen Prison and Bang’s loved ones. Personifying peace in action, in true Bang spirit – bold, playful and free – two actors move fluidly between roles, time periods and places.
The legacy of Bang, the idea that one person’s courage and activism can truly make a difference, is meant to stay with the audience long after the curtain falls."