LAUSR

ABSTRACT In EXILE BERGMAN, five individuals from around the world recount their experiences learning about Sweden from afar through the films of Ingmar Bergman. Once immigrated to the Scandinavian nation, however, each of these travelers realizes that the enthusiasm they have for the superstar Nordic director is not shared by their new neighbors. America Vera-Zavala’s play, which premiered at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm under her direction on August 31, 2018, explores a different kind of exile, where emigrants’ specific understandings of their new culture is not, in fact, largely shared by other members of that culture. Vira-Zavala’s work, crafted in collaboration with her subject-performers, shows Sweden as an globally imagined community, one contested by many of its citizens but no less real for that.