Why Tom Stoppard is driving in “Leopoldstadt” during the successful ‘Broadway Run’

• Tom Stoppard has a hit on his hands with “Leopoldstadt.”
• His autobiographical play is scheduled to end in July.
• “Leopoldstadt” is enjoying the kind of extended run that it was unable to have in London.

The well-known playwright Tom Stoppard has a hit on his hands with “Leopoldstadt,” his (very) loosely autobiographical play, which is currently in the sixth month of a lengthy run and is scheduled to end in July. That makes him very happy, but right now another issue is making him extremely upset: writer’s block.

“I’m driving myself daft and furious and upset because I can’t find a play I want to write,” Stoppard said on Stagecraft, Variety’s theater podcast. “I’m a much happier person if I’m writing, and for the last several months I’ve been failing, despite a very self conscious attempt to find a play to write.”

He added, “Don’t send me one. That never works.”

He can at least take comfort in the fact that “Leopoldstadt” is enjoying the kind of extended run that it was unable to have in London, where its West End premiere in 2020 was postponed due to the COVID-19 lockdown, while he searches for his next subject.

“When we were still in the early days in London and one thought ahead to New York, it was with a sense that New York might actually be the natural home for this play,” Stoppard said. “There’s a deep feeling among the people who come up to me to talk, and to the actors very much so, that they connect with this play in this town in a more intense way than I experienced in London.”

“Leopoldstadt,” about a prosperous Jewish family in Vienna confronting the rise of antisemitism during the first half of the 20th century, arrived on Broadway with particular political resonance as, in 2023, antisemitism has become increasingly prominent in the headlines — and even on Broadway itself. But Stoppard said he didn’t set out to write a political play.

“I’ve never felt that plays had a duty to be political, or indeed to be anything much except to honor the story they’re trying to tell, and to tell the story as well as it’s possible to tell it,” he explained. “I’m quite conservative about theater in that respect, and I always have been. I think theater is a very, very valuable form of recreation. When I say ‘recreation’ I don’t mean escapism or entertainment: It’s the recreational part of being a citizen.”

Also Read

Dame Diana Rigg: Game of thrones pay tribute to late actress

English Actress Dame Diana Rigg, who played the roles of Emma Peel in...