Leopoldstadt (play)

Leopoldstadt
Written by	Tom Stoppard
Date premiered	25 January 2020
Place premiered	Wyndham's Theatre London
Original language	English
Subject	History, Jewish life, The Holocaust, antisemitism
Genre	Drama
Setting	Vienna during first half of the 20th century from 1899 to 1955

Leopoldstadt is a play by Sir Tom Stoppard, directed by Patrick Marber, which premiered on 25 January 2020 at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End. The play is set among the Jewish community of Vienna in the first half of the 20th century and follows the lives of "a prosperous Jewish family who had fled the pogroms in the East".^[1] According to Stoppard the play "took a year to write, but the gestation was much longer. Quite a lot of it is personal to me, but I made it about a Viennese family so that it wouldn’t seem to be about me." (Stoppard's four Jewish grandparents died in Nazi concentration camps.)^[2]

A National Theatre Live recording was screened in over 380^[3] cinemas on 27 January 2022 (Holocaust Memorial Day) and topped that night's UK and Ireland Box Office.^[4] The play's second preview performance was also on Holocaust Memorial Day (in 2020) and the audience were each given a memorial candle as they left the theatre.^[5]

Background[]

Patrick Marber, who worked with Stoppard on the revival of Travesties in London and New York, commented that "It’s a big company play which as a director is incredibly exciting to do. It’s got the lot."^[6] During rehearsals he "instituted a fabulous regime of lectures" given by cast members, allotting each a subject relevant to the play's themes to investigate.^[7]

Leopoldstadt's original run at Wyndham's — which had no seat unsold at any performance — was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the production being temporarily shut down on 16 March 2020. On 25 October 2020 Leopoldstadt won the Olivier Award for American Airlines' Best New Play,^[8] and Adrian Scarborough won the Best Actor in a Supporting Role.^[9] After Covid restrictions were lifted in England the play re-opened, running from 7 August to 30 October 2021.^[10]

Stoppard told BBC Radio 4 that Leopoldstadt may be his last play^[11] though in October 2021 he acknowledged, in a CNN interview with Christiane Amanpour, that he was reconsidering this – “I'm a playwright, by more than, as it were, labeling. I feel like somebody who writes plays while they're still alive.”.^[12]

The Wyndham's production's set design was by Richard Hudson, costumes by Brigitte Reiffenstuel, lighting by Neil Austin, sound and original music by Adam Cork and movement by EJ Boyle. The 41 actors performing in the 2020 production were cast by Amy Ball (adults) and Verity Naughton (children); Leopoldstadt is also the sixth collaboration between Sonia Friedman Productions and Tom Stoppard.^[13] The initial cast list (of over 40 players^[14]) was announced on 25 October 2019^[15] and included Adrian Scarborough, Alexis Zegerman, Luke Thallon and Stoppard's son, Ed.^[7]

The play was to have had its North American premiere at the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, on 22 January 2022,^[16] for a seven-week engagement with the London cast, however it was announced that the run would no longer go ahead because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The theatre's owner, David Mirvish said "... I’m not giving up on Leopoldstadt. I’m determined to present this magnificent play in Toronto sometime in the future when it is safe to do so."^[17]

Plot summary[]

This play has less of a plot than a narative of a Jewish family group in Vienna over a period of some 50 years. The main set is the drawing room of a wealthy family. There are five acts, occurring in the years 1899, 1900, 1925, 1938 and 1955.

• 1899 This is the family Christmas (complete with Christmas tree) here acknowledge as one member has converted to Protestantism.
• 1900 One of women takes an unrequited fancy to a "goy" cavalry officer whom she meets with a family member chaperone. The latter succeeds (secretly) in having an affair with the officer, subsequently producing a son.
• 1925 Post-war conversations and circumcision celebrations.
• 1938 The year of the Anschluss. The family's home is requisitioned by the Nazis and the family must leave to be transported the following day, taking only 30 kg of possessions.
• 1955 Post war gathering, with a diminished cast, many having died in The Holocaust.

(This section needs development)

NT Live screenings[]

A performance of the play, recorded towards the end of its second run, was screened in UK cinemas (and some international locations) on 27 January 2022 (Holocaust Memorial Day) through NTLive.^[18]

Critical reception[]

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The play has been received in a positive tone, probably, due to the feeling that this was going to be his last play. Here are some examples:

"So here it is. Tom Stoppard’s last play. Very possibly. Britain’s greatest living dramatist has said that Leopoldstadt is likely to be the end of the road – given his age (82) and how long it takes him to write. Almost every major work he has produced since he burst onto the scene with his Hamlet spin-off Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in 1966 has been met with high anticipation."^[19] "History will record Leopoldstadt as Tom Stoppard’s Schindler’s List. His brilliant tragic-comic play opens in the Jewish quarter of Vienna in 1899. We meet a family of intellectuals and businessmen who are celebrating their very first Christmas. (...) At press night, the critics were busy scribbling one-liners which are destined to reach the dictionary of quotations. ‘Why do Jews have to choose between pushy and humble?’ ‘Today’s modern is tomorrow’s nostalgia: we missed Mahler when we heard Schoenberg.’"^[20]

Awards and nominations[]

Original West End production[]

References[]