"Hair" back in Serbia after 40 years, minus nudity
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hLUY0PVheDyEW-v1OLewGrRTwUVA
2/3/10
BELGRADE "Hair" makes its return to the Serbian stage Wednesday 40
years after it first premiered here -- but minus the famed nudity
that helped the anti-war musical cause a scandal.
The updated version preserves the original's "spirit of rebellion"
but now targets "problems that the whole world is facing nowadays,"
theatre director Kokan Mladenovic told AFP.
"Our 'Hair' is a scream of the contemporary generation against the
world based on power and money," he said before final rehearsals at
the Atelje 212 theatre which had also hosted the premier.
Nudity, shocking during the 1960s, has no role in the play now
because "it is needless in this pornographic era," Mladenovic added.
Long hair, too, had become "completely normal."
The acclaimed musical, born of the sexual revolution and hippy
culture of the 1960s, was first staged in New York in 1968 and became
a worldwide hit.
Its premier in then communist Yugoslavia was attended by then leader
Josip Broz Tito.
It was the first version of "Hair" produced in a communist country
during the Cold war era.
Instead of Vietnam, the musical's young protesters will raise their
voices against wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and against consumerism,
global warming, the pressure of work, globalisation and social alienation.
The actors will perform famous songs from the original musical in
Serbian, like their predecessors did in 1969, and some new hits have
been added.
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