Leopoldstadt

Today's the day ........................ for National Theatre Live

As part of my Christmas present to Will, we went to a live showing at The Fullarton in Castle Douglas, of Tom Stoppard's new play 'Leopoldstadt', currently being performed in London's West End.

The play tells the story of the extended family of Hermann Merz, a Jewish factory owner, living in the old crowded Jewish quarter of Vienna, Austria.  The play starts in 1900 and follows the family story across half a century, passing through the convulsions of war, revolution, impoverishment, annexation by Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.  The story is made all the more intimate because it is actually autobiographical for Tom Stoppard himself.

It didn't make for easy watching but it was superbly acted and utterly convincing.  It was a timely reminder today - the anniversary of the liberation in 1945 of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most notorious of the Nazi death camps - that such atrocities must never be allowed to happen again .........................