"Leopoldstadt," Tom Stoppard's stunning new play on Broadway about a highly cultivated extended family in Vienna that was decimated in the Holocaust, isn't autobiographical. But the work springs from the Czech-born English playwright's long-deferred examination of his Jewish roots.
In 1999, Stoppard published "On Turning Out to Be Jewish" in the inaugural issue of Tina Brown's Talk magazine. The death of his mother in 1996 prompted him to search deeper into his heritage. He knew bits and pieces about his background but not the extent of the tragedy that befell his relations after Hitler rampaged through Europe.
In his late works, Stoppard has been more willing to confront his personal history. But his method is to imagine alternative versions, as in his play "Rock 'n' Roll," which considers the life he might have led had he gone back to Czechoslovakia instead of moving permanently to England after his father died during the war and his mother married a British army major.
