톰 스토파드의 자책과 각성의 유대 서사: 『레오폴트슈타트』

Abstract

Tom Stoppard’s play Leopoldstadt, published in 2020, tells the story of the family and relatives of wealthy Jewish businessman Hermann Merz from 1899 to 1955, set in Vienna, Austria, the center of European culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Through a total of nine scenes, the first half depicts the traditions and customs of the Viennese Jewish family as well as the splendid cultural trend of Vienna. In the second half, the Nazi’s growing persecution of Jews, which began in earnest in 1938, and its disastrous results are well depicted. Leopoldstadt is on the same line as Stoppard’s mid- to late-period plays, focusing on the two themes of ‘history’ and ‘human being.’ However, as a Jew, his own perspective on this play would be completely different. Stoppard, born in the Czech Republic, began a new life in England around the age of eight when his mother remarried an English man after the death of his father. He has grown up as a thoroughly ‘British’ person, and is satisfied with his life as a mainstream playwright, saying that he has lived ‘a charmed life.’ Now Stoppard has chosen to confront Jewish suffering and death in his latest work. This can be said to be due to the sense of guilt and debt that had sunk into his own consciousness. Leopoldstadt is a narrative of confession created by Stoppard’s late but painful self-reproach and awakening.