Richard Hudson: Celebs Rumors

Kevin McCarthy finally got the speakership earlier this morning, but not before a weeklong slog that saw flared tempers, animated huddles and, in the penultimate drama before his moment of victory, a near-brawl.

The great playwright Tom Stoppard and his simpatico director Patrick Marber make a lasting gift of remembrance in the brilliant, gorgeous and devastating new play Leopoldstadt, opening tonight at Broadway’s Longacre Theatre. But it’s a gift that comes with strings, ropes even, the author seems to be warning us: There’s burden attached to memory, and pain, and, above all, responsibility – duty, even – that accompanies every yellowed snapshot in an old family album and every fading face that once seemed fixed with such clarity.

Marilyn Stasio Theater Critic In a radical departure from his usual intellectually esoteric style, Tom Stoppard’s new play is an intensely personal family drama. “Leopoldstadt,” which takes its name from the Jewish quarter of Vienna, doesn’t concern itself with quantum mechanics, metaphysical mysteries, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle or Fermat’s Last Theorem — all topics the playwright has tackled in previous plays. But because it follows the disintegrating fortunes of a close-knit Jewish family (and their goyish relatives by marriage), it does deal, in its way, with chaos theory.  The set (Richard Hudson, with a shout-out to the props team), costumes (Brigitte Reiffenstuel) and especially the lighting design (Neil Austin) bathe the first scene in an aura of domestic harmony. It’s 1899 and almost Christmas in Vienna. Everyone in the tastefully furnished Merz household appears to be approaching the 20th century with glad hearts. The family trade is prospering, the men are successful businessmen and academics, the women are smart and articulate and the children are well-behaved.

Most of the 38-member cast of the upcoming Broadway production of Tom Stoppard’s Olivier Award-winning Leopoldstadt was announced today, with four members of the original West End company making the move and newcomers to the show set to include Caissie Levy, Brandon Uranowitz, Seth Numrich and David Krumholtz.