Two years later, Lyubimov invited Efros into his own Taganka Theatre to stage "The Cherry Orchard". Both directors were drawn to the traditions of Vsevolod Meyerhold and Yevgeny Vakhtangov. In 1984, after Lyubimov left the Taganka Theatre for the West, Efros accepted an offer to run that theatre. Most of the actors, however, treated him as an enemy and sometimes flatly refused to cooperate with him. It is thought that the conflict with the Taganka actors contributed to Efros's premature death.