LEOPOLDSTADT
First US Production
Written by Tom Stoppard
Directed by Carey Perloff
Huntington Theatre
Boston
Shakespeare Theater
SELECTED REVIEWS
Leopoldstadt, The Huntington Theatre, Photo by Liza Voll
Excerpt:
It wasn’t until the early 1990s that the celebrated writer learned that all four of his grandparents had been Jewish and had died while imprisoned in Auschwitz and other concentration camps, along with his three aunts on his mother’s side.
With that awareness, the brilliant wordsmith – an Academy- and multi-Tony-Award winner for plays and movies including “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” “Travesties,” “Arcadia,” “The Coast of Utopia,” and “Shakespeare in Love” – wrote the sweeping “Leopoldstadt,” a fictionalized account of the family he never knew now being given a heart-rending production by the Huntington, in association with Washington, D.C.’s Shakespeare Theatre Company, at the Huntington Theatre through October 13.
–– Jewish Rhode Island
–– WBUR
Leopoldstadt, Brenda Meany, Samuel Adams, The Huntington Theatre, Photo by Liza Voll
LEOPOLDSTADT, Holden King-Farbstein, Joshua Chessin-Yudin, Quinn Murphy
Firdous Bamji; Photo by Liza Voll
"A practically flawless production from start to finish, the show is as layered and complex as the themes at its core. Playing out the pointed arguments of identity and assimilation through much of the show were Ludwig, played by Firdous Bamji, and Hermann, played by Nael Nacer. Both placing their faith in the power of systems — Hermann in high society and social graces and Ludwig in mathematics and rationality — these two actors were absolute standouts, even as (or especially as) hope is lost. Nacer’s Hermann slowly degrades with the weight of the world increasingly resting on his shoulders, while Bamji’s Ludwig retreats further into his mind as reality slips from him."
