Leopoldstadt

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28 June 2019 · Follow on Stagedoor

“A return to form for Tom Stoppard that reminds why he is revered as one of Britain’s greatest living playwrights. Stuffed full of the scintillating intellectual wit that is his trademark, it is also a poignant and deeply personal reflection of Stoppard’s own Jewish heritage.”

Lyn Gardner

25 January 2020 · Follow on Stagedoor

“It is almost five years since Tom Stoppard’s last new play, The Hard Problem. It wasn’t one of his great successes but Stoppard has often hidden his heart in his work and the cerebral fireworks are often at their most engaging when he has a personal connection with the material. There is certainly a connection here in a play that taps into Stoppard’s Jewish roots. Patrick Marber directs a play that begins in Vienna in 1900, where there is a thriving Jewish community, and follows that community through the first 50 years of the 20th century.”

Overview

Vienna in 1900 was the most vibrant city in Europe, humming with artistic and intellectual excitement and a genius for enjoying life. A tenth of the population were Jews. A generation earlier they had been granted full civil rights by the Emperor, Franz Josef. Consequently, hundreds of thousands had fled from the Pale and the pogroms in the East and many found sanctuary in the crowded tenements of the old Jewish quarter, Leopoldstadt.

Tom Stoppard’s new play, directed by Patrick Marber, is an intimate drama with an epic sweep; the story of a family who made good. “My grandfather wore a caftan,” says Hermann, a factory owner, “My father went to the opera in a top hat, and I have the singers to dinner.”

It was not to last. Half a century later, this family, like millions of others, has re-discovered what it means to be Jewish in the first half of the 20th century.

Critic reviews

Stately and supremely moving new work from the country’s greatest living playwright

⋅ The Stage

Moments of poignancy cannot save Tom Stoppard epic

⋅ The Times

It's an evening that leaves many people in tears. It left me profoundly moved but also full of thought and understanding

⋅ WhatsOnStage

Tom Stoppard's new masterwork is an early contender for play of the year

⋅ Evening Standard

Tom Stoppard delivers an unforgettable (perhaps final) play from the heart

⋅ The Telegraph

This is a powerful, important new play from one of our greatest living playwrights that, should it prove to be his swansong, means he has gone out on a significant high, even as he dramatises a low point on world history

⋅ London Theatre

Tom Stoppard’s alleged final play sees him go out on an almighty high, in a weighty and moving drama about the rise and fall of Vienna’s Jewish population

⋅ Time Out

Tom Stoppard’s new play Leopoldstadt is both epic and intimate

⋅ Financial Times

The play ends with a reckoning with history that is surely Stoppard's own, in keeping with a playwright only made aware of his Jewish ancestry in later life

⋅ The Arts Desk

With an immense accumulative power that leaves audiences awed and tearful

⋅ Broadway World

A fantastically executed, moving play about identity, family and memory

⋅ Londonist

Stoppard’s exploration of his religious and ethnic roots make for a thought-provoking piece

⋅ The Upcoming

It is personal and epic; it is triumphant and elegiac; it is massive and yet streamlined

Exeunt

Tom Stoppard’s shiveringly sensual journey through the terrible 20th century is a masterpiece

⋅ The Independent