Tag Archives: Vienna

Sep 22

Morality Makes No Difference Legally: “Leopoldstadt”

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The cast of The Huntington’s production of Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt,” photo Liza Voll. Projection design by Yuki Izumihara.

Presented by The Huntington
Produced in association with Shakespeare Theatre Company
Written by Tom Stoppard
Directed by Carey Perloff
Fight Director and Intimacy Consultant: Jesse Hinson
Movement director: Daniel Pelzig
Dialect Coach: Lee Nishri-Howitt
Dramaturgy by Charles Haugland and Drew Lichtenberg
Digital Playbill

September 12 – October 13, 2024
The Huntington Theatre
264 Huntington Ave. 
Boston, MA 02115

Approximate run time: 2 hours and 20 minutes, plus one 15-minute  intermission.

Article by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — The Huntington presents Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt at 264 Huntington Avenue in Boston. Leopoldstadt is a two-act play that dissects the scarring consequences of Vienna’s existing early 20th-century anti-semitism and later genocide of its Jewish citizens during WWII on one extended family. It plays through October 13. 

Writing this response to Wednesday night’s performance has been difficult. Leopoldstadt is a powerful play. Its cast performs brilliantly. Director Perloff gives this epic play life and believability. I wept bitterly during Act 1 and Act 2.  Continue reading →

Jun 25

Sometimes A Snuggle is Just A Snuggle: “The Baltimore Waltz”

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The Baltimore Waltz

presented by Theatre@First
by Paula Vogel
directed by Kamela Dolinova

June 20 – 29, 2013
Unity Somerville
6 William Street
Somerville, MA
Theatre@First Facebook Page

Review by Kitty Drexel

Warning: This production contains graphic but hilarious simulations of sexual acts, and bastardizations of European clichés.

(Somerville) As a playwright, Paula Vogel has the unique opportunity to dedicate herself to exploring and understanding her brother Carl’s end of life circumstances. Carl tragically died of AIDS. Rather than use the written word to metaphorically weep bitterly and openly, Vogel instead channeled her uncommon sense of humor and tender affections for Carl into The Baltimore Waltz, an ode to love, loss and healing.

In the context of the play, Anna has contracted Acquired Toilet Disease (ATD). In “real life,” outside the context of Anna’s fictional imagination, Carl has contracted AIDS. By narrating a character living with a pretend disease created for comic relief, playwright Paula Vogel examines the urgency of life through the lens of incurable disease.While her characters “dance” through a trippy, Noir-influenced trip to Europe, life as we know it continues with its disastrous choreography. Continue reading →