Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard discusses his new play, Leopoldstadt, in an extended interview.
Leopoldstadt is the area of Vienna where poor Jews lived, and the title of Tom Stoppard’s new play. It’s about a family who come from there but, cultured, clever, successful and assimilated, no longer live there when the play begins. It follows their story from 1899 to 1955, from fin de siècle optimism to the aftermath of the Holocaust. Talking to John Wilson in the theatre, Stoppard speaks about how, in the 1990s, he came to appreciate his own Jewishness and how now, in his 80s, he came to write what might be his last play, about a family whose tragic story parallels that of his own.