Leopoldstadt - Wyndham's / Cinema Screening

I have been in the dressing rooms at the Wyndham's and there's not that much room backstage!

Thank you and thank goodness.

Thanks for this. Will be interested to see where seats are as it looks to be very well sold.

Doesn't open until tomorrow so no opinions just yet.

Who is going this week? Please post.

Rush tickets now available

Great. I will be v interested in your comments 

I had two friends in the audience tonight. They loved it. Moving and funny. Huge cast well deployed.

Think I was sat next to you, youngoffender. Great view from Today Tix seats, although a shame they haven’t offered front row stalls for this. But maybe this is a blessing as it’s quite furniture heavy haha.

Agree with above. The first half is a great swirl of history and family, with only a small side order of Stoppardian diversions into mathematical theorem (it’s like he can’t help himself; however, they may reflect something far more important than my brain has connected yet, eg. Cats cradle knots reflecting Jewish movement/identity shifts, etc).

Names take a while to attach to people, purely because there are so many on the stage, but we get there eventually.

An early interval (just 56mins in) makes way for a longer second half which does have its moments, but the energy of the first half sort of pales away. We begin to lose or see less of the initial characters (owing to the time jumps) and are quickly presented with offspring/newcomers, so, beyond a painting of Faye Castelow, we don’t really have anything or anyone to truly latch onto and invest in.

The final act was the most disappointing for me as, although meant to be moving with a recounting of who had been lost, and denials of faith and family, the almost 3-hander ending was too reliant of exposition. Several characters having emotional breakdowns felt too “acted” and placed. Maybe they’ll let go more as it goes on. Or maybe Stoppard will add a bit more so that they’re not made to hurry on to the next revelation/guilt so quickly. There was sniffling around us, so some people were obviously moved, but I’d have preferred a narrative drive to be the source of that, rather than naming the dead.

The acting was excellent all round, with only some suffering a first night stiffness in delivery. The much talked about children’s cast don’t do much beyond run about and pull each other’s hair. Biggest laugh came from the aforementioned “cigar cutter” joke. You can probably guess what that’s about...

It also gifts a lot of ageing-up acting, especially for Faye Castelow and Adrian Scarborough (who both had to do the same thing when they started together in Time and the Conways at the NT years ago. Faye, of course, just did it again as HMQ in The Audience. She just feel trapped as “actress who can do ageing”) so there are wigs and old-man walks ahoy. Lovers of Luke Thallon get him shirtless and with his feet on show. And playing two characters.

But the ambition of the piece can’t be denied, and it fits nicely into the generational family drama genre, and joins the many other plays that have been written about the Jewish experience. I’m just not100% sure it’s saying anything new about it.

It does say something that the most moving moment for me was seeing all the characters enter onstage at the very start, complete with soaring Adam Cork score, and just stand there. If I’m honest it never really hit the emotional heights after that for me.

But definitely worth seeing as it’s so timely. Just don’t go expecting a revelatory or revolutionary new play.

Thanks for all these comments above! I’ll be sure not to clap at the wrong place. I hope they do tweak as it would be a shame to just miss being a good play by a slight overindulgence as it were...

Harry, thanks for this. V interesting and what looks like very clever chap our Stoppard.