Leopoldstadt review – Stoppard's family portrait is an elegiac epic

Wyndham’s theatre, London
Patrick Marber directs Tom Stoppard’s sweeping story of a Jewish family in Vienna across six decades

In 2003, Tom Stoppard was asked if he would ever write a “Jewish play”. “Absolutely,” he answered, though he was more ambivalent about basing it on his personal story. Only a decade earlier, he had found out he was fully Jewish and that many of his Czech family had died in Nazi concentration camps.

Here is his Jewish play – not directly based on Stoppard’s family, but he says it’s his most personal play and perhaps his last. As such, there is something momentous about Leopoldstadt, which has the weight and majesty of a final drama. It is grand, contemplative and elegiac with a cast of more than 20 and a historical sweep across six decades.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/37iwNal