Leopoldstadt, Shakespeare Theatre Company

 Tom Stoppard has had a reputation for many years as a playwright whose work is built on esoteric foundations. Despite the vast scope and variety of the kind of play his earlier career could encompass, it's easy now to point towards his plays with references that sound like the titles of episodes of Friends: The One about Chaos Theory, The One with the Dadaism, The Moral Philosophy/Consciousness/Socialism, Cancer and the Prague Spring. With Leopoldstadt, his most recent work now playing at the Shakespeare Theatre, you could likewise come up with various levels of elevator-pitch-length summations. It's a play about a family. It's a play about the shifting experiences of a Jewish family in Vienna that begins in 1899 and ends in the 1950s. It's a play deeply inspired by the life of Tomáš Sträussler, the young Jewish boy would would become the utterly Anglified Tom Stoppard and only work to rediscover his roots and heritage many years later.

The cast of Leopoldstadt. Photo by Teresa Castracane, courtesy of Shakespeare Theatre Company.

As a production directed by Carey Perloff and produced in association with The Huntington, this Leopoldstadt is also a story well-told. Abandon all hope of keeping accurate track of who's who and the particulars of each relationship within the family, but then, it does feel as though half the point is that those particulars don't matter as much as the simple truth that all the characters are family. There's a family tree included in the program, but in the dark and without the names being linked to headshots, it's of limited use. 

What's more important is the two halves of the evening, one dedicated to showing the heights and promise of the family in 1899 Vienna, which is also a window for the audience into that thriving cultural scene and network, and then the second half as history descends and promises are broken by outside forces. Among the many fine performances are Nael Nacer as as Hermann Merz, whose illusions are perhaps the most tightly held and earliest lost, and Necer gives a welcome depth of intelligence and willfullness combined with deep vulnerability. Maboud Abrahimzadeh is always a gift onstage, finding humor and immense quiet dignity in his role as Ernst, the brother-in-law to Merz. Rebecca Gibel also does very good work as Rosa, seen in both the 1920s and 1950s scenes, who had left Vienna for America and thus removed from her family for good and ill. The excellent work of the ensemble is bolstered by the beautiful work of the design team, from the sweep of Ken MacDonald's single grand room in the Merz family home to the gorgeous costumes of Alex Jaeger. Jane Shaw in particular does excellent work with sound design in the second half, evoking the fear of a family huddling for a safety that's in short supply.

What feels most striking about this production is that for all that Stoppard can't help but include some mathematical metaphors and plenty of references to the artistic and intellectual worlds of 1899 Vienna, Perloff's production keeps the focus tightly on the familial circle. The audience never loses sight of the humanity of the characters in their youth and age, their triumphs and lowest moments.  It feels very timely as well a strong reminder of how we got to where we are now, and how we must actively choose to preserve and remember our past. For all that Stoppard is treasured for his words, it's the long silence that settles in at the close of Leopoldstadt that will be remembered and felt for a long time.