Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Tom Stoppard’s panoramic, deeply personal LEOPOLDSTADT gorgeously excavates the playwright’s Jewish heritage

• By drediman
• October 9, 2022
• No Comments

This past week at the Longacre Theatre, I attended Leopoldstadt by Tom Stoppard, arguably our greatest living English playwright (his plays include masterworks like The Real Thing, The Coast of Utopia, Arcadia, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead). The highly anticipated work arrives on Broadway after having triumphed across the pond in the West End, where it won the Olivier Award for Best New Play. Set in Vienna, Austria, the panoramic play follows and charts the lives of four generations of a Jewish family starting from just before the turn of the twentieth century through to 1955.

At 85 years young, Leopoldstadt is likely the master playwright’s final major work. It’s also his most personal. In his latest, Stoppard gorgeously excavates his Jewish heritage, which he has remained relatively silent about until now. In this lightly veiled stand-in for Stoppard’s own family history, the playwright faces his complicated relationship with his Jewish identity head on (many of his forebears perished during the Holocaust). As such, the play functions as a sort of reckoning for the shame and guilt he has allegedly felt towards his heritage. Despite its labyrinthine plotting and myriad of characters, the play unfolds in a surprisingly concise and accessible manner without having to sacrifice the richness of Stoppard’s signature intellectualism, which has not always been the case in his works. In short, Leopoldstadt is a major play and will undoubtedly be one of the big contenders at the end of the season.

The Broadway edition of Leopoldstadt has been directed by fellow Englishman Patrick Marber (himself a notable playwright), who remounts his London staging. His emotionally vibrant production articulates the sprawling play with maximum clarity and force, giving it shape and forward momentum (the play’s intermission-less two plus hours fly by). The huge cast (38-strong!) is exceptional across the board. Although the play is very much an ensemble piece, each company member gives their character a strong sense of individuality. Standouts including Brandon Uranowitz, David Krumhotz, and Faye Castelow, each of whom give performances that pop vividly and insistently from the past.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

LEOPOLDSTADT
Broadway, Play
Longacre Theatre
2 hours, 10 minutes (without an intermission)
Through March 12