37 Hours and 3 Minutes

37 hours and 3 minutes – the time it takes to read Anna Karenina by Lev Tolstoy... "Highly recommended", says one of the three people on the almost empty stage, surrounded by small wooden trunks. With her typical dry humour, Gunilla Heilborn displays a subtle homage to the writer – but not exclusively. She raises questions that were controversial in the 19th century and still are today: one's place in society, morality, technical progress, and political development. The pertinence of Tolstoy's themes is staggering, especially when questioning the relations between Russia and Western Europe... "If the world could express itself directly, it would write like Tolstoy", says one performer, showing how all-encompassing his works are. 37 Hours and 3 Minutes is at once a poetic, playful, and profound performance about a giant of world literature and the mirror he continues to hold up to us.

"The piece premiered just weeks before Russias war on Ukraine started. We hope that it can now be a part of the difficult and important discussions concerning our relation to Russian culture."
Gunilla Heilborn

After the Show on Fri 13 May: Audience discussion

• http://www.gunillaheilborn.se