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In a radical departure from his normal intellectually esoteric fashion, Tom Stoppard’s new play is an intensely private household drama.
“Leopoldstadt,” which takes its identify from the Jewish quarter of Vienna, doesn’t concern itself with quantum mechanics, metaphysical mysteries, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Precept or Fermat’s Final Theorem — all subjects the playwright has tackled in earlier performs. However as a result of it follows the disintegrating fortunes of a close-knit Jewish household (and their goyish kin by marriage), it does deal, in its means, with chaos idea.
The set (Richard Hudson, with a shout-out to the props staff), costumes (Brigitte Reiffenstuel) and particularly the lighting design (Neil Austin) bathe the primary scene in an aura of home concord. It’s 1899 and virtually Christmas in Vienna. Everybody within the tastefully furnished Merz family seems to be approaching the twentieth century with glad hearts. The household commerce is prospering, the lads are profitable businessmen and teachers, the ladies are sensible and articulate and the kids are well-behaved.
Better of all, they’re dwelling within the creative and cultural middle of the European universe. The Mertzes are planning to attend the grand Exposition in Paris and having a superb snort about Gustav Mahler’s plan to take your entire Vienna Philharmonic to Paris “to bother the French.” Such is the idyllic life on this blended household; when somebody’s little boy mistakenly locations the Jewish Star of David atop the attractive, if distinctly Christian Christmas tree, it’s trigger for nice merriment.
Grandma Emilia, the matriarch of the household performed with whiplash wit by Betsy Aidem, has a handy guide a rough remark about that: “Poor boy, baptized and circumcised in the identical week, what are you able to count on?”
Her son, Hermann (fairly happy with himself, however so weak in David Krumholz’s efficiency), is socially formidable and one thing of a snob. Proud to be dwelling in essentially the most refined metropolis in Europe, he actually believes that his wealth and bonhomie can get him previous the Jewish factor and inducted into the distinguished Jockey Membership. “We’re the torchbearers of assimilation,” he boasts. (The scene wherein he learns in any other case left me shaken.)
Herman’s spouse, Gretl (a stunning efficiency from Fay Castelow, from the London manufacturing), is so lovely and vivacious {that a} younger painter asks her to pose for the portrait that hangs on the rear wall of the lounge for a lot of the play. Gretl and her tantalizing portrait determine largely within the plot, however unobtrusively so, beneath Patrick Marber’s virtually mathematically exact path.
Talking of arithmetic, Hermann’s sister, Eva (Caissie Levy), is married to Ludwig (Brandon Uranowitz), a math man (a numbers theorist, to provide him his due) who’s scornful of utilized arithmetic and takes a worshipful angle to his personal area. “Numbers are an enormous toy field,” he says. “We are able to play with them and make superb, lovely issues.” You may say the identical factor about language, one other of Stoppard’s passions.
A 12 months later, everybody on this splendid household appears to be having affairs and stealing each other’s lovers. However by 1924, the temper has turned grim – not just for the Mertzes, however for all of Europe, which has gone by means of a devastating warfare. Ludwig’s solely son was killed in battle, and Jacob, the son of Hermann and Gretl, got here residence lacking an eye fixed and a leg.
In a harrowing efficiency by Seth Numrich, Jacob is a haunted shadow of a person. “He’s hollowed out,” his father says – a line that ought to put to relaxation Stoppard’s unfair fame as an excellent however “chilly” author. The intermarriages have turn into far more sophisticated by now, however the open-hearted household welcomes its “meschlings.”
Though nobody on this family appears to have observed, Austria has been contaminated by a pernicious model of politics. It takes an outsider, a goy banker, to call this creeping menace for what it’s. “The category warfare turns folks in opposition to one another,” he observes, “however nationalism bands them collectively.” And hyper-nationalism turns them right into a mob, he may need added.
Dramatic set adjustments – by 1938, the household’s gracious residence appears shabby and their clothes seems well-worn – point out that Vienna has been contaminated by a pernicious model of nationalism that imperils its Jewish inhabitants. Nonetheless blinded by their religion of their creative and mental homeland, the Mertzes refuse to see what’s earlier than their eyes. However we who know the previous can see their future, which Stoppard reveals in a coda set in 1995 – and leaves us shattered.
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