![]() To report that this is emotional is to understate its impact. The final scene of Leopoldstadt (Leopoldstadt, by the way, was the traditionally Jewish area of Vienna although, of course, the Metz apartment is in a far more salubrious neighbourhood) is one of the most moving and shocking I have ever seen in a play, staged by Patrick Marber with meticulous care, where the entire family we met in that happy first scene, again assemble, this time to reveal the fate of each of them. Faye Castelowe’s elegant faithless Gretl and Jenna Augen’s stalwart Rosa are standouts as is Luke Thallon as the Stoppard alter ego. In such an enormous cast it sems churlish to single out performances but Adrian Scarborough’s Hermann conveys the strength of the man and his bewilderment at the several betrayals which destroy his belief in every bedrock of his life. They know themselves to be deeply Austrian, no long the Wandering Jews of history, no longer the scapegoats or the outsiders, but intrinsically part of the fabric of Viennese society. They know, and are part of, the many fin-de-siecle innovations of contemporary Vienna from Freud to Klimt to Mahler. They are close, and loving, and quarrelsome, and when we meet them at a Christmas gathering at the start of the play it’s hard to tell who is who among the aunts, uncles, cousins and children who populate director Patrick Marber’s crowded stage. Hermann’s wife, Gretl, is Catholic and currently sitting for a portrait from Gustav Klimt. Some are happily intermarried with Christians so no one thinks it odd that Christmas and Passover are equally celebrated in their home. The family is large, prosperous, deeply integrated into Austrian society and Jewish, but not very Jewish. The Metz family, patriarch Hermann Metz, owns this grand apartment which we see first in 1899. Leopoldstadt is a new play by Tom Stoppard, set in a drawing room in Vienna across half a century. ![]()
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