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Leopoldstadt
At the beginning of the 20th Century, Leopoldstadt was the old, crowded Jewish quarter of Vienna. But Hermann Merz, a manufacturer and baptised Jew married to Catholic Gretl, has moved up in the world. Gathered in the Merz apartment in a fashionable part of the city, Hermann's extended family are at the heart of Tom Stoppard's epic yet intimate drama. By the time we have taken leave of them, Austria has passed through the convulsions of war, revolution, impoverishment, annexation by Nazi Germany and - for Austrian Jews - the Holocaust in which 65,000 of them were murdered. It is for the survivors to pass on a story which hasn't ended yet.Tom Stoppard's Leopoldstadt was first performed at Wyndham's Theatre, London, in January 2020. 'One of Britain's greatest living playwrights to provide his most personal play yet.' The Times'The news that Tom Stoppard has written a new drama ranks as top-end seismic activity.' Daily Telegraph
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First published February 6, 2020
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About the author
Tom Stoppard
147 books1,013 followersSir Tom Stoppard was a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and political freedom, often delving into the deeper philosophical thematics of society. Stoppard has been a playwright of the National Theatre and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation. He was knighted for his contribution to theatre by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997.
Born in Czechoslovakia, Stoppard left as a child refugee, fleeing imminent Nazi occupation. He settled with his family in Britain after the war, in 1946, having spent the previous three years (1943–1946) in a boarding school in Darjeeling in the Indian Himalayas. After being educated at schools in Nottingham and Yorkshire, Stoppard became a journalist, a drama critic and then, in 1960, a playwright.
Stoppard's most prominent plays include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966), Jumpers (1972), Travesties (1974), Night and Day (1978), The Real Thing (1982), Arcadia (1993), The Invention of Love (1997), The Coast of Utopia (2002), Rock 'n' Roll (2006) and Leopoldstadt (2020). He wrote the screenplays for Brazil (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), The Russia House (1990), Billy Bathgate (1991), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Enigma (2001), and Anna Karenina (2012), as well as the HBO limited series Parade's End (2013). He directed the film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990), an adaptation of his own 1966 play, with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth as the leads.
He has received numerous awards and honours including an Academy Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, and five Tony Awards. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 11 in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture". It was announced in June 2019 that Stoppard had written a new play, Leopoldstadt, set in the Jewish community of early 20th-century Vienna. The play premiered in January 2020 at Wyndham's Theatre. The play went on to win the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and later the 2022 Tony Award for Best Play.
Born in Czechoslovakia, Stoppard left as a child refugee, fleeing imminent Nazi occupation. He settled with his family in Britain after the war, in 1946, having spent the previous three years (1943–1946) in a boarding school in Darjeeling in the Indian Himalayas. After being educated at schools in Nottingham and Yorkshire, Stoppard became a journalist, a drama critic and then, in 1960, a playwright.
Stoppard's most prominent plays include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966), Jumpers (1972), Travesties (1974), Night and Day (1978), The Real Thing (1982), Arcadia (1993), The Invention of Love (1997), The Coast of Utopia (2002), Rock 'n' Roll (2006) and Leopoldstadt (2020). He wrote the screenplays for Brazil (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), The Russia House (1990), Billy Bathgate (1991), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Enigma (2001), and Anna Karenina (2012), as well as the HBO limited series Parade's End (2013). He directed the film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990), an adaptation of his own 1966 play, with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth as the leads.
He has received numerous awards and honours including an Academy Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, and five Tony Awards. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 11 in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture". It was announced in June 2019 that Stoppard had written a new play, Leopoldstadt, set in the Jewish community of early 20th-century Vienna. The play premiered in January 2020 at Wyndham's Theatre. The play went on to win the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and later the 2022 Tony Award for Best Play.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 162 reviews
February 29, 2020
In diesem Sommer werde ich meinen Urlaub in Edinburgh verbringen und anschließend ein paar Tage in London, einfach weil sich das so anbietet. Bei der Gelegenheit werde ich mir zwei Theaterstücke anschauen, für die ich bereits Karten gekauft habe. Beide Stücke, das habe ich erst nachträglich erfahren, sind wohl sehr erfolgreich und gut besprochen worden. „Leopoldstadt“ hat es gar in deutsche Feuilletons geschafft (https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/th...). Da ich gesprochenes Englisch wesentlich schlechter verstehe als geschriebenes, habe ich das Stück gerade gelesen um mich vorzubereiten.
Die Geschichte beginnt 1899. Im Zentrum stehen zwei jüdische Familien in Wien, durch Heirat miteinander verbunden. Die eine Familie, schon lange in Wien beheimatet, modern, in weiten Teilen assimiliert. Die andere mit Wurzeln in Galizien, etwas traditioneller, religiöser, aber auch ihre Mitglieder oft mit Nichtjuden verheiratet und dem Fortschritt zugewandt. Sie sind erfolgreich, sehen sich als Österreicher, fühlen sich sicher - aber bereits hier gibt es eine Szene, die zeigt, dass es sich zum Teil um einen Trugschluss handelt (einem Mitglied der Familie wird 1899 ein Duell verweigert, weil einem Juden keine Satisfaktion zustehe).
Wir treffen auf diese Familie also zu verschiedenen Zeitpunkten: 1899, 1924, 1938 und 1955. Wir lauschen 1899 Gesprächen über Freud, Zionismus, Klimt, sehen 1924 die Opfer, die der Erste Weltkrieg der Familie brachte, wie 1938 jeder Besitz und jede Hoffnung verloren gehen und treffen 1955 die einzigen drei Überlebenden der Familie, die jetzt in England, New York und ja, auch wieder in Wien leben.
Es handelt sich bei der Geschichte ganz offensichtlich um Autobiografisches. Der Autor Tom Stoppard, bekannt durch seine Drehbücher für „Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead“ and „Shakespeare in Love“, stammt selbst aus einer jüdischen, Wiener Familie und ist heute 82 Jahre alt.
Das Stück mag konventionell sein, hat mir aber sehr gut gefallen und auf die Inszenierung bin ich mehr als gespannt.
Die Geschichte beginnt 1899. Im Zentrum stehen zwei jüdische Familien in Wien, durch Heirat miteinander verbunden. Die eine Familie, schon lange in Wien beheimatet, modern, in weiten Teilen assimiliert. Die andere mit Wurzeln in Galizien, etwas traditioneller, religiöser, aber auch ihre Mitglieder oft mit Nichtjuden verheiratet und dem Fortschritt zugewandt. Sie sind erfolgreich, sehen sich als Österreicher, fühlen sich sicher - aber bereits hier gibt es eine Szene, die zeigt, dass es sich zum Teil um einen Trugschluss handelt (einem Mitglied der Familie wird 1899 ein Duell verweigert, weil einem Juden keine Satisfaktion zustehe).
Wir treffen auf diese Familie also zu verschiedenen Zeitpunkten: 1899, 1924, 1938 und 1955. Wir lauschen 1899 Gesprächen über Freud, Zionismus, Klimt, sehen 1924 die Opfer, die der Erste Weltkrieg der Familie brachte, wie 1938 jeder Besitz und jede Hoffnung verloren gehen und treffen 1955 die einzigen drei Überlebenden der Familie, die jetzt in England, New York und ja, auch wieder in Wien leben.
Es handelt sich bei der Geschichte ganz offensichtlich um Autobiografisches. Der Autor Tom Stoppard, bekannt durch seine Drehbücher für „Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead“ and „Shakespeare in Love“, stammt selbst aus einer jüdischen, Wiener Familie und ist heute 82 Jahre alt.
Das Stück mag konventionell sein, hat mir aber sehr gut gefallen und auf die Inszenierung bin ich mehr als gespannt.
April 17, 2020
4.5, rounded up.
At 82, Stoppard has intimated this might be his final play, so it is extraordinarily sad that its premiere production was shuttered halfway through its run, due to the pandemic. Since it contains 29 characters (played by nearly 50 actors, due to the necessity of triple-casting the many young children), it is doubtful it will see many others.
Inspired by Stoppard learning late in life that he is fully Jewish, it is perhaps his most personal, as well as one of the more accessible of his late plays (I must admit to being hopelessly lost by the more puzzling of his recent proferrings - here all the scientific and mathematical gobbledygook is kept to a bare minimum, although the Riemann theorem is evoked on numerous occasions).
Opening in 1899, and following the sprawling Merz family in carefully picked set pieces in 1924, 1938 (during Kristallnacht!), and finally in 1955, mainly within the family apartment in the titular Jewish sector of Vienna, my main quibble is the difficulty in figuring out the internecine relationships; in the final moments of the play, an assimilated Englishman is given a family tree drawn by another relative, and one fervently wishes such had been provided to the audience as well. However, should this prove to be Stoppard's final drama, it is certainly a high note on which to end his illustrious career.
At 82, Stoppard has intimated this might be his final play, so it is extraordinarily sad that its premiere production was shuttered halfway through its run, due to the pandemic. Since it contains 29 characters (played by nearly 50 actors, due to the necessity of triple-casting the many young children), it is doubtful it will see many others.
Inspired by Stoppard learning late in life that he is fully Jewish, it is perhaps his most personal, as well as one of the more accessible of his late plays (I must admit to being hopelessly lost by the more puzzling of his recent proferrings - here all the scientific and mathematical gobbledygook is kept to a bare minimum, although the Riemann theorem is evoked on numerous occasions).
Opening in 1899, and following the sprawling Merz family in carefully picked set pieces in 1924, 1938 (during Kristallnacht!), and finally in 1955, mainly within the family apartment in the titular Jewish sector of Vienna, my main quibble is the difficulty in figuring out the internecine relationships; in the final moments of the play, an assimilated Englishman is given a family tree drawn by another relative, and one fervently wishes such had been provided to the audience as well. However, should this prove to be Stoppard's final drama, it is certainly a high note on which to end his illustrious career.
September 30, 2020
Fascinating and often superb but at times too provocatively and extensively didactic. I can't imagine what watching it would be like: one minute a layered romp and another a lecture.
June 19, 2023
Leopoldstadt is a screenplay that will captivate your attention and inspire your action. Tom Stoppard has written a splendid script that chronicles the saga of a Jewish family in Vienna from 1899 to 1955. The screenplay is both timeless and timely, as it portrays the struggles and successes, the hopes and horrors, the courage and compassion of a people who faced unspeakable violence and genocide.
The screenplay is expertly written with a large cast of characters that are authentic and engaging. The dialogue is witty and poignant, full of humor and wisdom. The structure is original and impactful, shifting between different time periods and locations. The imagery is vivid and powerful, evoking an intense sense of atmosphere and emotion.
Leopoldstadt is a screenplay that will make you sob, wonder, and learn, honor and mourn. It is a screenplay that celebrates the strength of Jewish culture and history, while also exposing the cruel and horrific realities of antisemitism and the Holocaust. It is a screenplay that caused me inner tumult as I read it, as I felt the implications of the story in my own life. It is also a screenplay that tragically mirrors the zeitgeist of today throughout the world, where hatred and intolerance are accelerating. It is a screenplay that you should not miss while it plays in NYC or read it, as I did.
Tom Stoppard is a master.
It will agitate and stay with you.
The screenplay is expertly written with a large cast of characters that are authentic and engaging. The dialogue is witty and poignant, full of humor and wisdom. The structure is original and impactful, shifting between different time periods and locations. The imagery is vivid and powerful, evoking an intense sense of atmosphere and emotion.
Leopoldstadt is a screenplay that will make you sob, wonder, and learn, honor and mourn. It is a screenplay that celebrates the strength of Jewish culture and history, while also exposing the cruel and horrific realities of antisemitism and the Holocaust. It is a screenplay that caused me inner tumult as I read it, as I felt the implications of the story in my own life. It is also a screenplay that tragically mirrors the zeitgeist of today throughout the world, where hatred and intolerance are accelerating. It is a screenplay that you should not miss while it plays in NYC or read it, as I did.
Tom Stoppard is a master.
It will agitate and stay with you.
July 12, 2020
A quiet and intimate insight into the lives and emotions of a Jewish family in Vienna. We capture moments in 1899, 1924, 1938 and 1955. The atmosphere in the theatre was indescredible. If you get a chance to see it at the Wyhdham's Theatre in London (until 13th June 2020) you won't regret it.
September 3, 2020
Tom Stoppard in 105 pages takes the reader or the audience member through 60 years of Austrian history. He includes the turn of the century, WWI, WWII and concludes in 1955. I am always amazed at a good playwright. How do they do it?
Including a family tree would have been appreciated.
Including a family tree would have been appreciated.
April 10, 2023
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 1/2. The only reason I didn’t give this play, Leopoldstadt by Tom Stoppard 5 stars is because there are so many characters in this play that it often got confusing and I suspect that when I actually see the play tomorrow at the Longacre Theater on Broadway, that having read it will go far in helping me follow it and understand it better.
Tom Stoppard is the author of such seminal works as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Jumpers, The Real Thing, Arcadia, The Invention of Love, and the trilogy The Coast of Utopia. His screen credits include Parade's End, Shakespeare in Love, Enigma, Empire of the Sun, and Anna Karenina.
“At the beginning of the twentieth century, Leopoldstadt was the old, crowded Jewish quarter of Vienna, a city humming with artistic and intellectual excitement”. Stoppard's play centers on Hermann Merz, a manufacturer who was baptized into Christianity and married a Catholic woman, Gretl. The family come together at their fashionable apartment on Christmas Day in 1899. We also see the family’s observation of a Passover Seder. It interested me that their tradition with the “Afikomen” was the opposite of my family’s. They had one of the young children take the half piece of the Matzah and hide it for the adults to later look for it. We have an adult hide it and the child who finds it gets a prize, usually in the form of $$.
By the time the play closes, “Austria has passed through the convulsions of war, revolution, impoverishment, annexation by Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust”. By the end of WWII, only 800 of the once 200,000 Jews who lived in Vienna survived
the Holocaust mostly, by remaining underground. The play ends by stating the fate of each character. Though the emotion of the play is profound, it is told in a kind of dispassionate manner. I will see how it effects me as I actually watch it tomorrow. That is in fact the way a play is meant to be experienced.
Tom Stoppard is the author of such seminal works as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Jumpers, The Real Thing, Arcadia, The Invention of Love, and the trilogy The Coast of Utopia. His screen credits include Parade's End, Shakespeare in Love, Enigma, Empire of the Sun, and Anna Karenina.
“At the beginning of the twentieth century, Leopoldstadt was the old, crowded Jewish quarter of Vienna, a city humming with artistic and intellectual excitement”. Stoppard's play centers on Hermann Merz, a manufacturer who was baptized into Christianity and married a Catholic woman, Gretl. The family come together at their fashionable apartment on Christmas Day in 1899. We also see the family’s observation of a Passover Seder. It interested me that their tradition with the “Afikomen” was the opposite of my family’s. They had one of the young children take the half piece of the Matzah and hide it for the adults to later look for it. We have an adult hide it and the child who finds it gets a prize, usually in the form of $$.
By the time the play closes, “Austria has passed through the convulsions of war, revolution, impoverishment, annexation by Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust”. By the end of WWII, only 800 of the once 200,000 Jews who lived in Vienna survived
the Holocaust mostly, by remaining underground. The play ends by stating the fate of each character. Though the emotion of the play is profound, it is told in a kind of dispassionate manner. I will see how it effects me as I actually watch it tomorrow. That is in fact the way a play is meant to be experienced.
October 4, 2021
Saw the play in Sep 2021 - it was very touching and is a powerful insight into the tragedies suffered by Jewish families and communities, in this context in Vienna, during WWII. It was a true ensemble piece where everyone had an important part to play and no one stood out too much, which ensured that the events of the story were the focus and the audience saw the events as widespread, systematic, and as having impacted whole families and communities.
That lack of an attachment to the characters was also its weakness, but being an autobiographical piece with a focus on the impact on his family and the wider community, it was a neccesary sacrifice.
Enjoyed the play thoroughly and the two hours flew by. Not having an intermission was a great choice.
That lack of an attachment to the characters was also its weakness, but being an autobiographical piece with a focus on the impact on his family and the wider community, it was a neccesary sacrifice.
Enjoyed the play thoroughly and the two hours flew by. Not having an intermission was a great choice.
February 9, 2023
Czech-born playwright Tom Stoppard has written a play, “Leopoldstadt”, that might - or might not - be the story of his own family. There’s some questions about Stoppard and his religious identity. Supposedly,he didn’t know his family’s Jewish roots til he was grown, which is a whole other topic. The play he has written is the story of a large, prosperous Jewish family - with a couple of members who have married “out” - living in Vienna.
The play is set in 1899, 1900, 1924, 1938, and 1955. We watch as the characters age in time and place and adapt to the changing political and cultural world. There are questions of assimilation - and what that means in both a religious and cultural way - as the politics of the times take a turn for the worse for the family. Even changing their religion and becoming baptized as Christians couldn’t save those members from the horrors of Auschwitz.
The play doesn’t show these horrors, but they are strongly alluded to in the text. After having read the play, I went to New York City to see the play. I can’t recommend it highly enough to those interested in the times portrayed. The acting is superb, but if you can’t see the play, please read this book.
The play is set in 1899, 1900, 1924, 1938, and 1955. We watch as the characters age in time and place and adapt to the changing political and cultural world. There are questions of assimilation - and what that means in both a religious and cultural way - as the politics of the times take a turn for the worse for the family. Even changing their religion and becoming baptized as Christians couldn’t save those members from the horrors of Auschwitz.
The play doesn’t show these horrors, but they are strongly alluded to in the text. After having read the play, I went to New York City to see the play. I can’t recommend it highly enough to those interested in the times portrayed. The acting is superb, but if you can’t see the play, please read this book.
September 29, 2023
tekstina raputab ta tugevalt emotsionaalselt läbi
lavastusena jääb vajaka
lavastusena jääb vajaka
January 29, 2022
I’m always surprised how much of Stoppard’s theatrical work, outside of R&G, sneaks up on you. You’re three quarters of the way through, thinking it’s very good and quite clever, and then in the final act it all sublimely comes together. Tiny moments seeded throughout the play are finally brought up, and the whole tapestry becomes magically vibrant and clear.
Funny, tragic, exquisite, examining subject matter around Jewish ancestry and identity in a way that perhaps only Stoppard possibly could. Magnificent.
Funny, tragic, exquisite, examining subject matter around Jewish ancestry and identity in a way that perhaps only Stoppard possibly could. Magnificent.
September 10, 2023
Deft. Devastating. Just the measured weight of the signature-Stoppard patter, the timing. The big subject lurking within the clever retorts and parries. The pratfall, used sparingly here for Stoppard, some flourishes with tricks up the sleeves, and then the dagger through the heart.
This isn't moving from the to-be-read shelf. I'll read it again for pace, sleight-of-hand, and concision. Tom Stoppard's rosebud. Just on the precarious verge of bloom.
This isn't moving from the to-be-read shelf. I'll read it again for pace, sleight-of-hand, and concision. Tom Stoppard's rosebud. Just on the precarious verge of bloom.
June 19, 2023
4.5, rounded up
February 22, 2020
A better read than a night in the theatre. The exposition is clunky, but the family is captured like snapshots and the old family photo album acts as glue. Poignant and inexorable.
Read
April 23, 2023no rating or substantial review — it was very good, very hard hitting, but i feel like i would enjoy it better if i saw a production in real time.
February 11, 2023
Extraordinary. Stoppard manages to be witty & light while creating strong characters & family dynamics, but at the same time lead us throughy the Holocaust & leave the reader (audience) in tears by the end. So engaging as a personal story, comic at times, but with universal themes. An intimate look at how a family decides whether to stay or leave their home & has parallels to current wars (eg Ukraine). Beautifully captures the inexpressible trauma of the camps. And the juxtaposition with a cousin who made it to England and now ‘writes’ which sounds frivolous in the context of the Holocaust - but makes you feel for Leo and think about survivor guilt.
December 15, 2022
read this in early 2020 lockdown and it spoke to me very much then. revisiting it now almost three years later (and after finally having a chance to see it performed live), i wished for more of a character motivated drama rather than one moved forward by the pace of history. i suppose this is in fact what the point of the play is (and to deny that would be to deny the fundamental humanity of these characters), but still too much of it felt expository. my favorite scene (both in 2020 and now) remains the final one set in 1955. the dynamic of rosa, leo, and nathan (g-d seeing brandon uranowitz break down on stage really is something else) is fascinating, but i still found myself longing for more specificity in the ways people burst out and console one another in equal measure.
June 9, 2020
With an enormous cast and a storyline that covers the 20th century, this is a highly unusual play for Stoppard and for our times. I wanted more insight and story detail with the characters who dealt with the Nazis and WWII; they and their moment seemed to go by too fast. It was as though we couldn't get past the basic outlines of a play deeply into the inner lives of these tragic people. There are some wonderfully funny moments, of course, and some moments of great pathos. This is Tom Stoppard and he is a master craftsman. But it felt more like the sketch of a play than the play itself. I wonder how the staging of it would affect my impression of a story that went too quickly past some of the most tragic moments of the 20th century.
January 26, 2024
Touching and interesting (especially understanding that it's partly associated with the playwrights life) but I thought it would pack a bit more of a punch at the end. Maybe it plays out better live.
October 18, 2022
Of course I'd read about the play and knew that it was going to be quite different from Stoppard's usual very witty and philosophical works, but I have to confess that I found this just too didactic. And that in spite of my very strong interest in and knowledge of the Vienna of the play's time. I wish very much that I could see it on stage, but I rather doubt that it's going to appear elsewhere than in the very heavily subsidized NY production.
August 11, 2020
A thoughtful and multi-layered family drama. It's a wonderful reflection on Viennese history and the rising and falling fortunes of the Jewish family at its core. The final act is, as expected, sobering. It's wonderful to read a master dramatist at work.
November 22, 2025
Took me a bit to get into this one, because there are so many characters in the first scene. Hard to keep them all straight. But really excellent, once past the first scene. Heartbreaking, and really important in these times. You can't just ignore fascists and assume they'll go away. You have to actively fight them.
October 12, 2020
As necessary as any Tom Stoppard play, but while most of his other works are beautifully calibrated idea machines, this one is a sledgehammer.
January 21, 2024
Stoppardi näidendid on tekstirohked, mis tähendab, et tema lavastuste edu sõltub suuresti ka näitlejate diktsioonist ja pauside kandvusest. Kuna näidendit lugedes saab tempo ise valida, siis oli Stoppardi lugemine tõeline nauding.
January 22, 2023
Superb. Heartbreaking. Brilliant. Quite possibly the best play I’ve ever read.
February 1, 2022
"It's like a second death, to lose your name in a family album"
While this is a challenging read, and a hard play to stage, especially if it is indeed Stoppard's last then it may well have a strong future.
While this is a challenging read, and a hard play to stage, especially if it is indeed Stoppard's last then it may well have a strong future.
August 28, 2022
I’ve always harbored an intense dislike of Tom Stoppard’s plays. It’s not that the plays are bad; I’m in no position to judge, for the reason that they’re quite simply over my head.
Now, I have the greatest respect for learning, and am generally admiring, rather than resentful, of people whose intellectual attainments exceed my own. But I’m not exactly an illiterate bumpkin, and for a playwright to demand that his audiences bring to the theatre a degree of erudition that is virtually unheard of among ordinary folks, even the smart ones, smacks of snobbery and braggadocio. It also betrays an arrogant indifference to the accessibility of his work to people who, though perhaps less learned than he, provide the support that enables him to make a living.
But though I am not one of Tom’s fans, there would have been no doubt as to my going to see Leopoldstadt when it comes to New York in the fall, without regard to the notices it receives. I am, you see, the son of Jewish refugees from Nazi Vienna, and anything having to do with the experience of Jews in that formerly glittering city after the 1938 Nazi takeover is irresistible to me.
Still, I perked up when I read a review of the London production noting that “the play is mostly devoid of the intellectual jeux d’esprit that have been its creator’s signature.” So much the better! And I was even more encouraged when the review went on to rave that Leopoldstadt “may be the Stoppard play for people who don’t normally cotton to Stoppard.”
Having now read the play, I can confirm that evaluation. Leopoldstadt is also a play with the dramatic power that we haven’t seen nearly enough of in recent years. Read it or go see it.
Now, I have the greatest respect for learning, and am generally admiring, rather than resentful, of people whose intellectual attainments exceed my own. But I’m not exactly an illiterate bumpkin, and for a playwright to demand that his audiences bring to the theatre a degree of erudition that is virtually unheard of among ordinary folks, even the smart ones, smacks of snobbery and braggadocio. It also betrays an arrogant indifference to the accessibility of his work to people who, though perhaps less learned than he, provide the support that enables him to make a living.
But though I am not one of Tom’s fans, there would have been no doubt as to my going to see Leopoldstadt when it comes to New York in the fall, without regard to the notices it receives. I am, you see, the son of Jewish refugees from Nazi Vienna, and anything having to do with the experience of Jews in that formerly glittering city after the 1938 Nazi takeover is irresistible to me.
Still, I perked up when I read a review of the London production noting that “the play is mostly devoid of the intellectual jeux d’esprit that have been its creator’s signature.” So much the better! And I was even more encouraged when the review went on to rave that Leopoldstadt “may be the Stoppard play for people who don’t normally cotton to Stoppard.”
Having now read the play, I can confirm that evaluation. Leopoldstadt is also a play with the dramatic power that we haven’t seen nearly enough of in recent years. Read it or go see it.
November 19, 2020
My favorite Stoppard play among those I have read so far. Apparently he uses it to come to terms with his own recently-discovered Jewish heritage. It is interesting that many characters' names (and a few characteristics) he uses come from the Wittgenstein family. (He lists The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War in his Author's Note.)
He manages a moving synopsis of 50 years of Austrian history and family dynamics in just 100 pages. In the scene that takes place on Kristallnacht one of the characters asks (p. 71) "Why the Jews?" This is of course a timeless question for the "chosen people," famously asked by Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof." It reminds me of the comic take-off:
Chosen for what? Chosen to lead in the path of righteousness? Maybe. Chosen to be a light unto the world? Maybe. Chosen to bear witness to my friend, whose name is God? Maybe. Or, chosen to take the blame from all blame throwers for everything that goes wrong in the world...
The old story tells of a wise man talking to his bigoted acquaintance and he says, "You're right, all the trouble in the world is caused by the Jews--and the bicycle riders!"
The bigot asked, "Why the bicycle riders?"
The wise man says, "Why the Jews?"
An unforgettable read. Thank you.
He manages a moving synopsis of 50 years of Austrian history and family dynamics in just 100 pages. In the scene that takes place on Kristallnacht one of the characters asks (p. 71) "Why the Jews?" This is of course a timeless question for the "chosen people," famously asked by Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof." It reminds me of the comic take-off:
Chosen for what? Chosen to lead in the path of righteousness? Maybe. Chosen to be a light unto the world? Maybe. Chosen to bear witness to my friend, whose name is God? Maybe. Or, chosen to take the blame from all blame throwers for everything that goes wrong in the world...
The old story tells of a wise man talking to his bigoted acquaintance and he says, "You're right, all the trouble in the world is caused by the Jews--and the bicycle riders!"
The bigot asked, "Why the bicycle riders?"
The wise man says, "Why the Jews?"
An unforgettable read. Thank you.
February 3, 2023
Leopoldstadt opened in January 2020 -- what singularly bad timing for a new play -- and due to COVID closed down shortly thereafter. I had been approached by one of the actors with some questions about the setting and so was immediately intrigued. I wish I could see a live performance, of course, but thoroughly enjoyed reading the play. In some ways, Stoppard here does something similar to O'Connor's The Lady in Gold -- both veer from academic history, although the latter tries to stay largely in the realm of non-fiction. The play covers several generations of a Jewish family in Vienna (Leopoldstadt is the city's second district, famously a center of Jewish life in Vienna in the pre-WW2 period), beginning in a period of great prosperity (a family member commissions a portrait by Klimt), through the antisemitism of the interwar period and the murder and displacement of the late 1930s and 1940s.
It helps to pencil a family tree into the flyleaves.
It helps to pencil a family tree into the flyleaves.
December 1, 2025
When I saw the news, Saturday morning, that Tom Stoppard had died at the age of eighty-eight, I knew what I had to do: take out the copy of Leopoldstadt that I’d purchased over a year ago and spend the day reading it. Maybe I’d been subconsciously saving it for this very occasion. Everyone in the theater world sort of knew that this would be Stoppard’s last play—and it’s a worthy capper to a brilliant career. Not only is it as heady and erudite as you'd expect from Stoppard, and not only does it confront the greatest horror of the 20th century, it does so in a deeply personal way.
Stoppard, born Tomáš Sträussler, always knew he was Czech (and I always loved hearing him speak in his wonderfully chewy Czech-British accent)—but only late in life did he learn he was Czech Jewish. The family at the center of Leopoldstadt isn’t an exact reflection of Stoppard’s own; they are upper-class Austrians instead of middle-class Czechs, perhaps because Stoppard has long been interested in fin-de-siècle Vienna. But the young man who appears in the final scene might be the most autobiographical character Stoppard ever wrote, even more than Henry in The Real Thing .
The first half of the play takes place over a few months, from Christmas to Passover, at the turn of the 20th century. (Yes, this big Viennese Jewish family includes some mixed marriages and participates in some Christian holidays.) There’s a lot going on at first; per the stage directions, “several balls are in the air from the word go, and little or no sense can be made.” But eventually, it comes into focus as a domestic drama of flirtation and adultery, influenced by the work of Arthur Schnitzler. (The characters reference Schnitzler’s scandalous play La Ronde , and some character names are a cheeky allusion to his Liebelei —which Stoppard adapted in the 1980s as Dalliance .) This is familiar territory for Stoppard, and he hasn’t lost his touch; the last line of Scene 2, followed by the opening stage direction of Scene 3, made me shout “Oh shit!” out loud. Stoppard always had a knack for curtain lines.
Later on, there’s a top-class example of one of Stoppard’s favorite comic devices: the hilariously extended misunderstanding. Here, on the day that the family is preparing to circumcise a newborn boy, a Gentile banker shows up at the flat and gets mistaken for the mohel. Stoppard shamelessly piles on the jokes, such as when the banker innocently asks if they have a cigar-cutter! It also just occurred to me that this connects to the play’s talk of Freud—we are in early-1900s Vienna, after all.
After we’ve come to know and love the turn-of-the-century characters, the play starts to rapidly jump forward in time: 1924 Austria, democratic but diminished after its defeat in the Great War; late 1938 and the horrors of Kristallnacht; a postwar scene that reckons with the shattering losses of the Holocaust. (Interestingly, Stoppard does not specify where to put an intermission, but it would probably make most sense right before the time-jumps start.) It becomes even harder to keep track of the younger generations of characters and their relationships—I have to think this is deliberate, and a little cheeky. The play is full of lines calling out the confusion, e.g. “He’s not your grandson! He’s Wilma’s grandson. He’s your… sister-in-law’s sister-in-law’s grandson.”
Still, even if it’s self-aware about it, Leopoldstadt does start to feel a little overstuffed. Maybe big family sagas need more room to breathe. Might this have worked better as a novel or a multi-part play like The Coast of Utopia ? (But then, if it were more drawn out, would the grief become unendurable? The 1938 Kristallnacht scene does an excellent job of showing how terrible things have become for Jewish Austrians over the last decade-and-a-half, without needing to dramatize every painful increase in anti-Semitism.)
Nonetheless, Leopoldstadt is certainly way better than Stoppard’s previous play, The Hard Problem ; it might even be my favorite play written by an octogenarian. Very few playwrights have sustained such a sharp, funny, high-flying career for over half a century. And if Stoppard kind of stole the ending from his own masterpiece Arcadia and reused it here, so what? It’s still a beautiful image for him to leave us with at the end: two people waltzing, graceful and happy, brave and unsuspecting, waltzing in defiance of the death and oblivion that await us all.
Stoppard, born Tomáš Sträussler, always knew he was Czech (and I always loved hearing him speak in his wonderfully chewy Czech-British accent)—but only late in life did he learn he was Czech Jewish. The family at the center of Leopoldstadt isn’t an exact reflection of Stoppard’s own; they are upper-class Austrians instead of middle-class Czechs, perhaps because Stoppard has long been interested in fin-de-siècle Vienna. But the young man who appears in the final scene might be the most autobiographical character Stoppard ever wrote, even more than Henry in The Real Thing .
The first half of the play takes place over a few months, from Christmas to Passover, at the turn of the 20th century. (Yes, this big Viennese Jewish family includes some mixed marriages and participates in some Christian holidays.) There’s a lot going on at first; per the stage directions, “several balls are in the air from the word go, and little or no sense can be made.” But eventually, it comes into focus as a domestic drama of flirtation and adultery, influenced by the work of Arthur Schnitzler. (The characters reference Schnitzler’s scandalous play La Ronde , and some character names are a cheeky allusion to his Liebelei —which Stoppard adapted in the 1980s as Dalliance .) This is familiar territory for Stoppard, and he hasn’t lost his touch; the last line of Scene 2, followed by the opening stage direction of Scene 3, made me shout “Oh shit!” out loud. Stoppard always had a knack for curtain lines.
Later on, there’s a top-class example of one of Stoppard’s favorite comic devices: the hilariously extended misunderstanding. Here, on the day that the family is preparing to circumcise a newborn boy, a Gentile banker shows up at the flat and gets mistaken for the mohel. Stoppard shamelessly piles on the jokes, such as when the banker innocently asks if they have a cigar-cutter! It also just occurred to me that this connects to the play’s talk of Freud—we are in early-1900s Vienna, after all.
After we’ve come to know and love the turn-of-the-century characters, the play starts to rapidly jump forward in time: 1924 Austria, democratic but diminished after its defeat in the Great War; late 1938 and the horrors of Kristallnacht; a postwar scene that reckons with the shattering losses of the Holocaust. (Interestingly, Stoppard does not specify where to put an intermission, but it would probably make most sense right before the time-jumps start.) It becomes even harder to keep track of the younger generations of characters and their relationships—I have to think this is deliberate, and a little cheeky. The play is full of lines calling out the confusion, e.g. “He’s not your grandson! He’s Wilma’s grandson. He’s your… sister-in-law’s sister-in-law’s grandson.”
Still, even if it’s self-aware about it, Leopoldstadt does start to feel a little overstuffed. Maybe big family sagas need more room to breathe. Might this have worked better as a novel or a multi-part play like The Coast of Utopia ? (But then, if it were more drawn out, would the grief become unendurable? The 1938 Kristallnacht scene does an excellent job of showing how terrible things have become for Jewish Austrians over the last decade-and-a-half, without needing to dramatize every painful increase in anti-Semitism.)
Nonetheless, Leopoldstadt is certainly way better than Stoppard’s previous play, The Hard Problem ; it might even be my favorite play written by an octogenarian. Very few playwrights have sustained such a sharp, funny, high-flying career for over half a century. And if Stoppard kind of stole the ending from his own masterpiece Arcadia and reused it here, so what? It’s still a beautiful image for him to leave us with at the end: two people waltzing, graceful and happy, brave and unsuspecting, waltzing in defiance of the death and oblivion that await us all.
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