“At moments of historical crisis, when the necessity of choice generates fears and neuroses, men are eager to trade the doubts and agonies of moral responsibility for determinist visions, conservative or radical, which give them “the peace of imprisonment, a contented security, a sense of having at last found one’s proper place in the cosmos.” He points out that the craving for certainties has never been stronger than at the present time; and his [writings] are a powerful warning of the need to discern, through a deepening of moral perceptions–a “complex vision” of the world–the cardinal fallacies on which such certainties rest.”
From Aileen Kelly’s introduction to Russian Thinkers, by Isaiah Berlin
Deterministic positions claimed at either end of the spectrum.
The “peace of imprisonment…having at last found one’s proper place in the cosmos.”
The craving for certainty in spite of a world that is increasingly complex.
The “cardinal fallacies on which such certainties rest.”
These descriptive phrases, delineated in a 20th century book about 19th century Russia, are relevant to many aspects of this 21st century American moment: a political landscape polarized, the demise of truths that can be validated, climate change and planetary woes, the contentious difficulty of codifying a shared sense of cultural history.
Isaiah Berlin’s book, Russian Thinkers, was almost required reading for anyone going to see Tom Stoppard’s 3 part play, The Coast of Utopia, produced in New York at Lincoln Center in 2006. Spending 9 hours contemplating the limitations to human reasoning and problem solving—a tendency most apparent during challenging times—is only one thematic thread that appears in Stoppard’s trilogy and in his astoundingly broad body of work.*
The range of ideas and leitmotifs in Stoppard’s plays speaks to his uniquely eclectic, erudite, deeply probing and brilliant mind. He is probably our most idea-centric English language playwright, making concepts into dramatic entities all their own that are scintillating and compelling. And yet he is the quintessential autodidact, commanding a deep understanding of mathematics, history, poetry and the classics without ever having attended college.
In the words of Christopher Wallenberg:
“From Arcadia to The Invention of Love and The Coast of Utopia, Stoppard’s plays are celebrated as buoyant meditations on life, love, art, and culture, animated by witty banter, thought-provoking ideas, and heady debates…they’re also brimming with deep and poignant reflections on loss. ‘What is it to lose your culture, your literature, your language? What is it to have books burned? What happens when you forget your past, or don’t know anything about the past?'”
His latest work, Leopoldstadt, is now playing at the Huntington Theater. The setting is Vienna in 1899. Over a 60 year period, we travel through time with several generations from a large blended family of mostly assimilated Jews.
The play’s story line is actually very close to Stoppard’s own family history. He famously did not find out until the early 1990s that he was Jewish and that most of his extended family in Czechoslovakia were killed by the Nazis. His parents and his brother fled the country when he was 2 years old. In dodging the war, his father was lost, his mother remarried, then moving from India to England. The family name was changed from Straüssler to Stoppard, and their origins were never spoken about. (To learn more about his story, read his essay, On Turning Out to the Jewish, here.)
This is a big, sprawling play, with many characters and plot lines. For both the production in New York (directed by Patrick Marber and the winner of 4 Tony awards) and in Boston, a family tree is included in the program to help audience members keep track of generations, lineages and relationships. (Note: Ancillary materials have often accompanied Stoppard plays. Invention of Love, his play about the poet A. E. Housman, had an entire book of excellent essays–including works by such formidable scholars as Anne Carson and E. L Doctorow--that was given to every audience member. And the Boston program for Leopoldstadt includes an excellent essay, Number Theory, by Drew Lichtenberg, Resident Dramaturg for the DC Shakespeare Theatre Company.)
Carey Perloff (back after having directed last season’s excellent The Lehman Trilogy) heads up this new Boston production. She comes to this massive play with serious bona fides. Not only has she written a book about Stoppard (Pinter and Stoppard: A Director’s View,) she is also mentioned in Hermione Lee’s massive Stoppard biography as “one of the few women directors to work with him regularly,” someone with whom he has an “excellent working relationship and a close friendship.” (That is also evidenced by the permission she garnered from Stoppard to streamline this production of 40 characters, giving actors multiple roles. This is an approach that will pave the way for more affordable productions of the play to be possible in the future.)
The connection with Stoppard and with the Leopoldstadt storyline has a personal family component as well. Her mother, Marjorie Perloff, was born into a Viennese Jewish family and escaped the city when she was a child. Later, as a respected academic, she wrote a memoir about the Viennese Jewish elite, The Vienna Paradox. In writing Leopoldstadt, Stoppard was in touch with Marjorie and relied on her as a resource for the play.
Both productions, in New York and in Boston, were riveting. (Many of my friends will be rolling their eyes and asking, “Was there ever a Stoppard production you didn’t find riveting?” The answer would be an emphatic NO.) While there is an undeniable inevitability to this plot, we all enter the theater knowingly. We come to witness and to hold this tragic tale with grace and with grief, to consider how to never let this story be repeated.
“What kind of responsibility do we have to remember the histories of our families, particularly when they intersect with tragedy? And is it a moral failing to want to pick and choose what you carry with you, to live most of your life unencumbered by the past? That last question strikes at the heart of what Stoppard seems to be asking in Leopoldstadt—not least because he has asked the audience to come to his latest (and, as he has suggested, possibly his last) play with knowledge of his own history. Something like an answer to that question is presented onstage in this great and powerful production, but just how acutely it is received will likely be determined by the history the audience brings to it.” (Chloe Schama)
Make every effort to see this play. It will be a night of theater you will never forget. Leopoldstadt is at the Huntington through October 13.
For all the sorrow captured in this Holocaust story, Stoppard also said this: “Every atom is a cathedral.” From plays about the strife and loss in 19th century Russia to the soul crushing years of repression in Czechoslovakia, Stoppard also writes about what is beautiful, mysterious and exquisitely unknowable. Earlier plays, particularly Arcadia and Invention of Love, are situated on this end of his wide spectrum of concerns.
Stoppard has not openly aligned himself with future and visionary movements, but his notion of the “cathedralic atom” is a way to consider our way forward.
There seems to be resonance for him personally with the words he gives Alexander Herzen in The Coast of Utopia:
“History has no purpose! History knocks at a thousand gates at every moment, and the gatekeeper is chance. It takes wit and courage to make our way while our way is making us, with no consolation to count on but art and the summer lightning of personal happiness…
There is no such place and Utopia is its name. So until we stop killing our way towards it, we won’t be grown up as human beings. Our meaning is in how we live in an imperfect world, in our time. We have no other.”
This brings to mind many contemporary thought leaders who understand the importance of seeking for a viable future even when it feels out of reach, impossible, impractical, unrealistic. Climate visionaries like Rebecca Solnit and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (author of the new book, What if We Get it Right? Visions of Climate Futures) come to mind, emphasizing how important it is to defeat hopelessness by picturing a future that can work, one that can embrace viable solutions. Negativity, cynicism and defeatism are dealbreakers. Nature—and humans—can be adaptive and resilient.
While this kind of optimism about the future is not his battle cry, Stoppard’s extraordinary capacity to explore human thought and the power of ideas is his strongest offering about how we can move forward.
From Lichtenberg’s essay:
“’If we think of the world’s future, we always mean where it will be if it keeps going as we see it going now,’ Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote in 1929. ‘It doesn’t occur to us that it is not going in a straight line but in a curve, constantly changing directions.’”
*Because Stoppard is my favorite playwright, I have written about him many times on Slow Muse:
Freedom History, Loss: Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll
Stoppard Marathons, Theatrical Extremes and Other Joys