It will take another, likely lesser, playwright to explore why someone as brilliant and intellectually curious as Tom Stoppard waited so long to address his family heritage, and only then after a Czech relative confronted him with incontrovertible evidence. As much as I admired Leopoldstadt, it didn't expand my knowledge of the Holocaust or the events leading up to it, and one of its major themes--avid appreciation of high culture does not prevent human beings from committing heinous acts--seems pretty hackneyed by now. Still, the final act of the play, by far the best and most interesting, dramatizes Stoppard's "come to Yahweh" moment with a push from his four Jewish grandparents. It elicits both shivers and sobs and a probable Tony nomination for Brandon Uranowitz's angry, forgiving performance as the cousin left behind to face a "bad war."
* * * *
On the other hand, why should Jews have to define themselves by their ethnicity. As one character notes, when goys do that, they're typically expressing anti-Semitism. Perhaps Stoppard didn't investigate his family heritage because he wanted to avoid writing about the worst of mankind. After all, this is the heterosexual man who gave us "The Invention of Love" and other life-affirming works. Our lives are shaped by our experiences and good fortune characterized his.
No comments:
Post a Comment