INTERVIEW: Jenna Augen on the genius of Tom Stoppard’s ‘Leopoldstadt’
Photo: Jenna Augen and Aaron Neil star in Leopoldstadt on Broadway. Photo courtesy of Joan Marcus / Provided by BBB with permission.
One of the most acclaimed and successful plays of the 2022-23 Broadway season is Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt, now playing at the Longacre Theatre in Midtown Manhattan. In the show, which is directed by Patrick Marber, a large ensemble of actors brings to life an extended family living in Vienna at the end of the 19th century and early decades of the 20th. There is great joy and holiday cheer in the opening scenes, but then the dark shadows of antisemitism and fascism begin creeping into the life of this Jewish family. By the end, there’s devastation and unimaginable tragedy.
Leopoldstadt, which is partly fashioned after Stoppard’s own extended family, has recently been extended into summer 2023. One of the key characters of the play is Rosa, played by Jenna Augen, who has been with the production since the early days when the show first premiered in London.
“I was called in to audition in London,” Augen said about her inclusion in the 38-member cast. “So I read for a few different things and then read for Rosa, and that went well. We had a wonderful time in the audition, lovely chat, and it was really warm. A few days later I heard about a recall, and I couldn’t believe it. I went in for the recall, and I met Tom Stoppard and read Rosa again. Then, the rest is history. I couldn’t believe it when I got it. That phone call was really something, to be offered that — extraordinary.”
Augen counts herself a fan of Stoppard’s writing. She actually performed as Lady Croom in his classic Arcadia while in college, and with each rehearsal for that play, a new element of the Stoppard web would begin to emerge. His theatrical literature — sometimes dramatic, sometimes comedic, always epic — is known for large casts that live an authentic life on stage, having endlessly interesting conversations about life, poetry, faith and art. Leopoldstadt is no different than the rest of the playwright’s oeuvre, but it has a deeply personal side as well. This exploration of a Jewish family occurs at a time when the individuals are facing uncertain futures, violence in and out of the house, and disruption to what they hold dear.
“I’ve always loved Stoppard’s writing,” Augen said. “He writes so beautifully and intricately and articulately. It’s genius. It’s extraordinary his facility with language, and that was my main introduction to him. I’d been reading him for many years, just like all of us, but when I read the play, it sort of clicked in the audition actually for me. I read it, and what I was astonished by was how slowly it worked. … I started the play, and I was really involved in the Viennese backdrop and the time period and the politics and what was being discussed, and enjoying all the champagne problems at the beginning, literally with champagne. And then when I got to 1938, I had to put … [takes a moment] … the play down because I didn’t know. I read it completely cold. I didn’t know that we were going to go through those periods, and just seeing that date made me understand the beginning of the play in a way that I hadn’t really realized.”
It’s an emotional experience for the audience to arrive at that year, 1938, and start to realize the horrors that are occurring. For Augen, she needed to go back to the first part of the play and re-read and re-digest the narrative. She finds audiences are on a similar journey; they are shocked by the turn of events before their eyes.
“Having spoken to members of the public, I think they have the same experience in a lot of ways,” she said. “You get involved with this family and their beautiful life in Vienna, and then time hits you like a ton of bricks. That’s the design of the piece. … I noticed when I was talking to Patrick in the audition, we were actually talking about the character of Hanna and putting her into the context of the rest of the play, and that’s when I understood the mechanism of time passing. And that her ‘problems’ are certainly not her problems at the end. Actually none of us really have problems. … You just don’t realize that it’s been creeping up on you. It’s being said from the beginning. He discusses antisemitism in Vienna from the beginning. It’s not not there, but you just get lost in the aesthetic of it. It’s absolute genius what he does, and, of course, none of us should be surprised. He’s a genius. That was the feeling of reading that first time, the shock of that date and understanding where we were going.”
Augen has high praise for Marber as a director. The actor said he has a wonderful way of gathering groups together and, during the rehearsal process, transforming them into an authentic family. That was the case in London, where Augen first performed in Leopoldstadt, and it’s the case in New York, where there’s a mostly new cast. Augen later wrote in an email that Marber is particularly excellent at responding to actors that he has in the room with him. She said because of this technique so much has changed with each iteration of the show.
“It just clicked,” said Augen, whose other credits include Bartholomew Fair, The Comedy About a Bank Robbery and The Knowledge, among many other stage credits. “The second we got in the room we all just very much loved each other from the off. I know that sounds corny, but it’s true. We got on, and we all went to lunch. It was wonderful, and we immediately started discussing the relationships. … I know it’s an overwhelming portrait of family because there are so many of us, and there are so many people. But I think that’s part of the aesthetic experience of the play. … So you don’t have to see it 25 times to keep track of every strand, but you’re absolutely welcome to.”
One particular change, and a rather large difference between London and Broadway, is that Augen is now portraying both Rosa and her mother, Wilma. In the West End, she was only playing Rosa.
“Rosa and Wilma are very different women, but they are linked, not only genetically, but thematically as well,” Augen stated in an email. “At the beginning of the show, Wilma is labelling and examining photographs for the family album and working to preserve the memories of everyone in those pictures. In the end, Rosa ends up inheriting and continuing her mother’s work in a much more immediate way. To play Wilma and Rosa together has felt reinforcing and significant as memory is so much at the heart of the drive and the work of Leopoldstadt.”
Augen added this about her continued admiration for Stoppard’s creations: “I was dazzled by the genius of Tom Stoppard: boundless imagination; the delightful, facile, versatile language; and the intricacy of his thematic web, yes, but it was the heartbeat at the center of Arcadia that hooked me for life. And that heartbeat is omnipresent in Leopoldstadt.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Leopoldstadt, featuring Jenna Augen, is currently running at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway. Click here for more information and tickets.
