STAGE

Soviet director Georgiy Tovstonogov wants to stage “Doctor Zhivago” in Leningrad--despite the book’s absence in the Soviet Union since it was published in 1957. Tovstonogov, director of the Leningrad Dramatic Theater, told the Moscow News on Thursday that he had found nothing anti-Soviet in the novel by Nobel Prize winner Boris Pasternak, and that his decision to stage “Zhivago” was based on “a desire to again treat the subject of the intelligentsia and revolution.” Tovstonogov added that he found the American movie version of the book “in essence anti-Soviet, and a fable at that.” The director said that dramatization of “Doctor Zhivago” probably would be next year after it is published in the literary journal, Noviy Mir.