In ‘Leopoldstadt,’ a Master of the Stage Confronts His Own Ghosts

Tom Stoppard’s most personal play covers years of dashed dreams and consummated cataclysm.

Joan Marcus/ Leopoldstadt
Joshua Satine (Young Jacob) decorates a Christmas tree in Tom Stoppard's 'Leopoldstadt.' Joan Marcus/ Leopoldstadt

“Leopoldstadt,” Tom Stoppard’s most personal play, is also true to the playwright’s form. It features a lot of talking, a surfeit of ideas, and is unrepentantly highbrow. It tells the story of a Jew-ish family at Vienna — there are baptisms and mixed marriages aplenty — between 1899 and 1955. Years of dashed dreams and cataclysm, on view at the Longacre Theatre.  

Jewish dream merchants, many of them immigrants from the world “Leopoldstadt” resurrects over its more than two hours, were the makers of such Xanadus as Las Vegas, Hollywood, and Broadway. Rarely, though, has there been a work of the stage or the screen that is so obsessed with the Judenfrage: How can the Jew be inoculated against modernity’s poisoned chalice? Zionism, baptism, socialism, and Auschwitz are answers the play considers.    

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