Leopoldstadt (play)

This article is about the Tom Stoppard play. For the district of Vienna, see Leopoldstadt.

Leopoldstadt
Written byTom Stoppard
Date premiered25 January 2020
Place premieredWyndham's Theatre
London
Original languageEnglish
SubjectHistory, Jewish life, The Holocaust, antisemitism
GenreDrama
SettingVienna during first half of the 20th century from 1899 to 1955

Leopoldstadt is a dramatic stage play written by British playwright Sir Tom Stoppard. The original production premiered on 25 January 2020 at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End. The play is set among the wealthy Jewish community in Vienna,[1] 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".[2]

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." All four of Stoppard's grandparents were Jews murdered by Nazis in concentration camps.[3] On 2 October 2022, the production opened on Broadway at the Longacre Theatre with Marber directing.[4]

A National Theatre Live recording was screened in over 380[5] cinemas on 27 January (Holocaust Memorial Day), 2022 and topped that night's UK and Ireland box office.[6] The play's second preview performance had also taken place on Holocaust Memorial Day, in 2020, when each audience member was given a memorial candle as they left the theatre.[7]

  1. ^ "Tom Stoppard interview". YouTube.
  2. ^ Maxwell, Dominic (29 June 2019). "Leopoldstadt, Tom Stoppard's new play". The Times. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  3. ^ Brown, Mark (26 June 2019). "Jewish district inspires Tom Stoppard in 'personal' new play". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  4. ^ Gordon, David (7 June 2022). "Tom Stoppard's Leopoldstadt to Open On Broadway This Fall". Theatermania.com. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
  5. ^ "NT Live: Leopoldstadt". LondonNet.co.uk. Archived from the original on 27 January 2022. Retrieved 27 January 2022.
  6. ^ @NTLive (28 January 2022). "We're over the moon to have topped the UK & Ireland box office last night with Leopoldstadt! @SFP_London 😱" (Tweet). Retrieved 28 January 2022 – via Twitter.
  7. ^ @MFr5854769 (27 January 2020). "We were given these memorial candles as we left the performance of Tom Stoppard's #Leopoldstadt. A particularly poignant date to see this powerful and personal play" (Tweet). Retrieved 29 January 2020 – via Twitter.