STAGE

The current director of Moscow’s Taganka Theater was quoted by the Soviet magazine Ogonyok (The Bell) as saying that Soviet authorities are going to ask Yuri Lyubimov--the Taganka’s former chief, who was stripped of his citizenship while abroad in 1984--to come back and take up his old job. Nikolai Gubenko, who is currently running the Taganka, told the magazine that the theater had invited Lyubimov to take up his old duties next January. “The theater is counting on the understanding of those people on whose decision his arrival depends,” Gubenko said, adding he would be willing to step aside to allow Lyubimov to take up the directorship of the Taganka.