Leopoldstadt

Taking its title from the old Jewish quarter of Vienna, Stoppard's epic yet intimate drama centers on Hermann Merz, a manufacturer and baptized Jew married to Gretl, a Catholic. As the play begins, Gretl is hosting her extended family at their fashionable Vienna apartment at Christmastime, 1899. Yet by the time the play closes, Austria has passed through the convulsions of war, revolution, impoverishment, annexation by Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust, which stole the lives of 65,000 Austrian Jews alone.From one of the world's most acclaimed playwrights, Leopoldstadt is a heartbreaking drama of literary brilliance, historical verisimilitude, and powerful emotion--