The following account by Rima Shore of Yevgeny Yevtushenko's Under the Skin of the Statue of Liberty is based on her viewing of the performance in Moscow on January 7, 1973. The production was directed by Yuri Lyubimov. The small Dramatic Theatre on Taganka Square, where the performance was staged, was founded in 1946. A. K. Plotnikov, the Theatre's first director, retired in 1964 and was succeeded by Lyubimov, who at that time was teaching in the studio attached to the Vakhtangov Theatre.

The production of Under the Skin of the Statue of Liberty has raised some debate in the European and American press. As part of this introduction we are reprinting excerpts from an article that appeared in the news columns of The New York Times and Yevtushenko's reply, which appeared in the Letters to the Editor section of that same newspaper.