STAGE

Exiled Soviet stage director Yuri Lyubimov, 70, wants to return to his mother country, he said in an interview with Isvestia, the Soviet government newspaper. Lyubimov was interviewed in Madrid, after he viewed four performances by Moscow’s Taganka Theater, which he founded more than 20 years ago. Lyubimov, who lives in Spain, said he’d return to the Soviet Union if he were guaranteed artistic freedom, but added he was making no political demands. Said Lyubimov, who had his Soviet citizenship revoked in 1984: “One needs to stand on his native land, on which he was raised, where his fathers and grandfathers lived.” Even in exile, he told the newspaper, he has concentrated on staging productions that acquaint the world with Russian culture.