Review: LEOPOLDSTADT at Main Street Theater
A family saga that stuns! Tom Stoppard's last and most personal work!
Sir Tom Stoppard’s last play, LEOPOLDSTADT, is his most personal. He wrote a narrative loosely based on his own family, changed the location to Austria, and finally wrote a Jewish script. The show debuted in London in 2020 and ran on Broadway from 2022 to 2023. It garnered the Tony for best play that year, and this Main Street Theater production represents its Regional debut. This makes spiritual sense because director Rebecca Greene Udden is known as a Stoppard connoisseur and master. She’s built a career on staging his top-tier works by this playwright. To have this production during Main Street’s 50th anniversary season marks something special, and it's likely the one play you don’t dare miss in 2026. Ambitious, sprawling, and awe-inspiring, this begins to tell the tale of the Merz and Jacobovicz family. It’s larger than you would ever guess, but it feels so very intimate.
LEOPOLDSTADT illustrates the history of a family over fifty of the most tumultuous years in Vienna and around the globe. Uprisings and two world wars defined what it meant to be in the Jewish culture and the practitioners of the faith. The terrible sacrifices made echo in these scenes of a family trying to find their place in a maelstrom. Don’t think it is all politics, because Stoppard truly does delve into day-to-day conversations and gatherings. He allows the family to live and breathe, and not just serve as a cautionary tale or some tragedy. It starts in 1899 and ends in 1955, with a character who may well stand in for the author in the final scene. But then again, so many of the characters speak like Sir Tom Stoppard. If you love language, you will be in heaven.
The cast includes an embarrassment of riches, with over twenty of the best actors assembled here in Houston. The ensemble is impeccable, and so well cast to reflect the play’s rich history. Dain Geist plays the heftiest part as the financial founder of this empire, Hermann. Dain is naturally perfect for this role, a product of sacrifices of his own family, and he’s an immaculate actor. His presence is the core of everything. His wife is played by Meg Rodgers (last seen in a stunning turn in ANGELS IN AMERICA), and her character is Catholic and introduces the idea of the Jews assimilating into the Austrian fabric. Meg is a luminous matriarch, and her ethereal delivery works here to make her the outsider in this clan. She’s the heart. Zack Varela is a mathematician married to Hermann’s sister. Zack has not been on stage since 2018’s BOOK OF WILL, but he embraces the part and creates a logical, lovable figure to contrast with Laura Kaldis’s skilled and more emotional portrayal of his wife. They are the mind and soul. There are way too many fine performances to inventory them all, but Ian Lewis, Kara Greenberg, James Cardwell, Karen Ross, and Shannon Emerick all emerge in their own sections. Everyone, down to the child actors were believable and moving throughout.
Technically, Main Street Theater is a bit smaller than the Broadway house this played in, but Afsaneh Aayani’s interior is dazzling up close. Amber Stepanik has to costume an army marching through six decades, and the clothes speak as strongly as the characters. Rodney Walsworth’s props and set dressing make a strong impression, bringing the family to life with the smallest details. But it is honestly Rebecca Greene Udden’s understanding of staging Stoppard epics that makes all of this tick. She does impossible things with such a large cast in a small space, and draws out incredibly honest and moving performances from everyone. Main Street Theater has always been renowned for its handling of Sir Tom Stoppard’s works, and this feels like a climax and a testament to a fifty year-old legacy.
If there is anything I can say to criticize this stunning work, it is that it can sometimes be hard to track who is who. There are so many characters, a double cast here and there, and just a press of family members to keep tabs on. There are a ton of people, an avalanche of words, and it all buzzes around you so fast. You almost have to sit back and let LEOPOLDSTADT wash over you. You will be frustrated trying to suss out the relations or the exact lineage of any given speaker at any given time. But isn’t that part of being a family? Creating a fabric or a tapestry where the history is common and the names begin to blur.
LEOPOLDSTADT is an amazing Regional premiere, acted out by over twenty of Houston’s best thespians, and directed by a legendary Tom Stoppard expert. This is why Main Street Theatre has lasted for generations (ironically, almost the same number of years covered in this work), and it is a celebration of what they do best. This is a chance to see an epic up-close and personal. Where the Broadway production was a gorgeous painting for you to watch come to life at a distance, this is a chance for you to sit in the same living room with these people and feel everything they do. It feels like family.
LEOPOLDSTADT runs through May 3rd at Main Street Theater in Rice Village. Parking can be a challenge, so definitely plan to navigate it with plenty of time before the curtain. The show is just over two hours and forty minutes long, and thankfully has a fifteen-minute intermission (unlike the unbroken extended single act of the Broadway production). There are many restaurants within walking distance, and there is a bar with snacks.
Photo provided by Pin Lim
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