NEW YORK --- At 84, Tom Stoppard concedes that Leopoldstadt will probably be his final play, If so, he concludes a major career at the top of his game with this epic, deeply personal history of a Jewish family moving through the first half of the 20th century and, inevitably, encountering and falling prey to the Holocaust. Absent is Stoppard’s affection for whimsy and … [Read more...]
Magisterial (and literally weighty) bio explores life of playwright Stoppard
One of the most memorable days I ever spent in a theater was when I saw all three parts of Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia at New York’s Lincoln Center, a cumulative 8-1/2 hours of pre-revolution Russian history and philosophy. As the audience left the Beaumont Theatre late that night, ushers were passing out buttons that said, “I survived 'The Coast of Utopia.'” … [Read more...]
What’s on in New York: The Broadway season in review, Part Two
Here is Part Two of my survey of the current Broadway season in New York: Summer: The Donna Summer Musical – There were surely biographical jukebox musicals before 2005’s Jersey Boys, which celebrated the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. But it was the enormous success of that show that begat Beautiful about Carole King’s life, next season’s Cher musical and this … [Read more...]
Postcard from Broadway, No. 1: ‘Travesties’ and ‘Harry Potter’
Saturday was sunny, but chilly in New York, but fortunately I was spending almost six hours in a theater watching Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the hot ticket of the season. My trip began with a revival of Tom Stoppard's Travesties, another import from London. Both were in final previews, so I can't get too specific with my opinions yet, but both are challenging works, … [Read more...]
‘Arcadia’ a feast of intellectual riches at Dramaworks
Far too many evenings of theater leave one hungry for mental nourishment. Then there are the plays of Tom Stoppard, who challenges the brain with heady subject matter and tickles the funny bone with audacious wordplay. Introduced to the world in 1966 with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, his deconstruction of Hamlet by way of Waiting for Godot, Stoppard was long … [Read more...]
Stoppard’s ‘Arcadia’ may be Dramaworks’s biggest challenge
Palm Beach Dramaworks audiences have had to grapple with the weighty plays of Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee and such absurdists as Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco. But with its first foray into the canon of Great Britain’s Tom Stoppard, producing his Olivier Award-winning Arcadia, as dense with ideas as it is with wordplay, the company may be serving up its most … [Read more...]