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Ken Kesey: One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest

10/28/2024 8:00 PM

In 1962, Ken Kesey published the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which perfectly resonated with the rebellious and free-spirited ethos of the time and achieved almost immediate, immense success. The author, who described himself as "too young to be a Beatnik and too old to be a hippie," used a tragically comic and quirky-intelligent approach to strike at the heart of the struggle between the individual and the always, to some extent, repressive system, hitting a nerve. Almost archetypically, through a gallery of characters that range from a lumberjack and a boastful gambler, a noble "savage," to a mute chief and the ice-cold head nurse. Just a year later, the famous playwright Dale Wasserman adapted the novel into a play that, as expected, captivated both audiences and critics. It’s no wonder that in 1975 *One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest* was made into a film that won all the major Oscars. The story of Randle McMurphy, who decides to serve his prison sentence in a mental institution instead of jail, a game of outwitting the system that turns into a genuine fight for rights and freedom of spirit, a battle against a repressive system where the man ultimately loses his sanity, was brought to the stage under the direction of the brilliant Dražen Ferenčina.