Tom Stoppard Imagines His Family’s Mostly Forgotten Past
7 / 10
Leopoldstadt is the sort of dizzying intellectual panorama for which Stoppard is revered - a chronicle of social movements, theoretical frameworks, and geopolitical catastrophes. (Drink every time someone speaks passionately about the state of the world, and you'll have to crawl home.) The play, directed by Patrick Marber in a production that premiered in the West End, proceeds through 50-plus years in just over two hours, introducing more than two dozen characters that it seems to understand we won't be able to keep straight. Those details don't matter in the larger sweep of history, and the family's fate is evident from the start.
