Why have you decided to do Blues for the Messiah?
– It is rare that I am in position to chose. Theatre managers offer me their selections and I chose what to do from their offer. I chose this play with great pleasure, having previously adapted it. In my play, the plot takes place not in Latin America but in Serbia. It is the story of a man who saves and heals people, and possesses supernatural abilities. The dictator of the country wants to crucify him. The dictator takes money from a TV station to telecast the crucifixion. I read the text and came to the part where people who otherwise love the man who saves and heals their children, want to know the place of crucifixion because the place will become an important tourist destination. Why have I chosen this play? I don't know, one I know several people who give and do good and don't ask for anything in return. And that's what they get in return. We crucify those that lead us to good. I believe in love. You can call it salvation if you like. On the other side, the time has finally arrived to decide whether we choose the vulgar or spiritual. We are bombarded with vulgarity. It's high time to decide. This play speaks about that.
Does this world want to be saved?
– I think it does. In any case, this play is a warning. An SOS from Crveni Krst (Belgrade area where the theatre is located): Choose spirituality. We can call it love too. The play is quite different any I have done so far. It is not a bel canto. I have definitely, in my forties, come to what Dante says, "In the mid-course of life I found myself lost in a dark wood, the right way was lost… (Nel mezzo del camin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura che la dritta via era smarita.) This play is about that and this text helped me to realise evil is stupid.
What moment is especially important for you in this play?
– These two extremes: one is the epicentre of vulgarity, another is sheer goodness. I hit vulgarity in the heart with the scene at the inn.
Have traditional values disappeared today or they are overvalued?
– No, but order is disturbed. They have taken us away from the essence of humanity. Nothing is horrible any more. All this is in this play. I have concluded that what is normal is not ordinary. I am at peace with myself and I feel splendid, but I look around me. True values haven't been lost, but sometimes one has to scream from the stage.
Janine, the character in the drama, says that she was free only when she fell from the sixth floor while attempting suicide.
– I don't believe in self-destruction as a form of freedom. I am Montenegrin, where we say: "It's easy to go crazy. It's more difficult to live." Life is a tough discipline, a heavy category. I feel an immense respect for people who take life seriously. I have taken theatre seriously and then I take life seriously too. Death should be deserved. I feel deep respect for people who work. I can no longer tolerate parasites, idlers, vampires and blood suckers. That's why I would like to stress that the Belgrade Drama Theatre works impeccably. Everything functions. That's why I came to work with the BDT.
You last worked at the Belgrade Drama Theatre twenty years ago. How do you feel about that?
– I was then a twenty-year-old child with long curly hair. I worked with Aca Popović, and I feel a need to stand up when I mention his name. I am essentially the same man today. I have advanced, my status is different, the masks and epidermis are different but the man is the same; that same Jagoš who comes to the theatre to unload his whole self. Because I live the theatre. Direction is not a vocation but a way of life and thinking. What kind of director I have become in the meantime is not for me to say. I am not the one to interpret my aesthetics. I will not deal with myself in such a way. The audience sees and feels everything and I will not set boundaries to its imagination. The audience knows everything and one takes whatever one wants - someone takes fun, someone grief. We all project ourselves into a book, music, play. And if the king doesn't like acting, than the king doesn't like acting. I don't want to occupy myself with this. At the moment, I have fifteen plays running and the oldest, Little Red Riding Hood, at the Boško Buha Theater is seventeen years old. Hence I can allow myself to think that I am in good relations with the audience.
You have been invited to direct in Dramaten, the theatre of Bergman, Strindberg and Greta Garbo, where your Minister's Wife achieved great success. That is a great honour.
– It is. To me it was an honour to come to Dramaten. It's true that Minister's Wife was well received. One has to experience that. Only when I saw Strindberg in Dramaten, and heard the applause, did I realise what has happened to us. Next year I begin work on Strindberg's Queen Kristina. Nothing less. The date of the premiere is known, due I'm not going to tell you, to avoid bad luck. | 
