Tom Stoppard died on on November 29, 2025 at the age of 88.  Perhaps the most prolific and talented playwright of his generation, he was knighted for his work in 1997 and has been compared to Shakespeare and Shaw for his influence on the contemporary theater. Born to a Jewish family which fled from Czechoslavakia just ahead of the Nazi invasion, his plays often dealt with issues of human rights, censorship and political freedom.

Stoppard received numerous accolades including an Academy Award for Best Screenplay for Shakespeare in Love, three Laurence Olivier Awards , and five Tonys. In 2008, “The Daily Telegraph” ranked him number 11 in their list of the “100 most powerful people in British culture”. His final play, “Leopoldstadt” premiered in 2020 and won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and later the 2023 Tony Award for Best Play when it opened on Broadway in 2023.

We saw it there, after I had read it, and I found this story of a solidly middle class, educated, and comfortable Jewish family living in Vienna when the Nazis came to power to be the most powerful theater experience I’ve ever encountered. The final scene where the members of the family recite what year and in what concentration camp they were murdered was shattering.

In addition to “Leopoldstadt”, I’ve read and enjoyed “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” and “Arcadia”, and “Indian Ink” is similarly excellent.  The play, as in “Arcadia” takes place in two time periods.  One shows the Flora Crewe as a young, British poet and adventuress, arriving in rural India for a visit to improve her health. The time is somewhere in the 1930’s prior to Indian independence.  Often sharing the stage is the second setting in which Flora’s sister, Nell Swan in 1950’s England is trying to make sense of Flora’s letters, poems, and artifacts left in a trunk when Flora died in India.  There’s the biographer who wishes to examine these materials, the son of the Indian artist with whom Flora had an affair, and Nell, herself who are all mixed up in Flora’s life.  Shades of E.M. Forester’s “A Passage to India” are everywhere and even acknowledged in the play.

The brilliant weaving of these two times, places, and people that Stoppard accomplishes is one of the wonders of the stage, different from the techniques of the novel and wonderfully brought off by the playwright.  The ending brought me to tears, and while I’m an easy mark having sobbed out of control at the end of “Leopoldstadt”, I didn’t feel manipulated, but only in awe at Stoppard’s skill.

British colonialism, Indian independence, young love and young death, and literary posterity are all brought together in this brilliant play.  Interestingly, the play is having a revival at the Hampstead Theater in London, as I write this.  The role of Nell Swan is being played by Felicity Kendal, Stoppard’s widow.  In the 1995 production, Kendal played Flora and now 30 years later, she plays her sister.  Sadly, the play closes just before we return to London in February.

On another ‘small word’ dimension, I found our copy of “Indian Ink” in the Cambridge basement whilst (getting ready to return to the UK!) beginning to prepare the basement for a major emptying.  The book is in pristine condition and the receipt from the Drama Book Store in NYC from 1998 was still intact, bringing back wonderful memories of visiting that store with our theater-smitten daughter so many years ago.

If you haven’t read Stoppard, do so by all means or better yet, experience one of his plays. If you do, make sure to bring a hankie.