ABSTRACT
Lyubimov's theatre has usually been classified as political theatre. Yet, although most of his productions were deeply rooted in the political reality of their time, this alone does not create political theatre. Lyubimov has spent almost thirty years at the Taganka fighting for each production against either officials or press campaigns. Although this steeps some of his productions in a cloud of scandal, making him the “enfant terrible” of Soviet theatre, it does not mean that his opposition was essentially political.
I think that the attitude to the Taganka theatre was wrong from the beginning. It did not become famous primarily because it resisted the régime. It did something completely different. 1
