A study of Yury Lyubimov's tempestuous career and his style of theatre during his thirty years at the Taganka Theatre. This work traces the development of his ideas, from his arrival at the theatre in 1964 through to his explusion in 1984, and his period of exile in the West until his return in 1989 to a much-changed Russia. Tracing Lyubimov's work play by play, the book uncovers an individual doomed to be at odds with the prevailing political and social climate of his literary contemporaries.