National Theatre Live: Leopoldstadt

Jan 27, 2022

2h 20m

★ 8.8

A passionate drama of love, family and endurance.

Overview

At the beginning of the 20th century, Leopoldstadt was the old, crowded Jewish quarter of Vienna, Austria. But Hermann Merz, a factory owner and baptised Jew now married to Catholic Gretl, has moved up in the world. We follow his family’s story across half a century, passing through the convulsions of war, revolution, impoverishment, annexation by Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. A company of 40 actors represent each generation of the family in this epic, but intimate play.

Genres

Drama

History

Production Companies

National Theatre

National Theatre Live: Leopoldstadt Trailers

Cast

Hermann

Aidan McArdle

Gretl

Faye Castelow

Young Nathan

Rhys Bailey

Sebastian Armesto

Leo

Arty Froushan

Young Leo

Wesley Holloway

Jacob

Joshua Satine

Young Jacob

Aaron Shuf

Young Leo

Oliver Kohn

Young Leo

Mace Phoenix

Aaron Neil

Eleanor Wyld

Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie—until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely observed tale of courage, cowardice, and tragic awakening.

7.3

The Piano Teacher

Sep 5, 2001

Erika Kohut, a sexually repressed piano teacher living with her domineering mother, meets a young man who starts romantically pursuing her.

8.4

Life Is Beautiful

Dec 20, 1997

A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.

7.8

Letter from an Unknown Woman

Apr 28, 1948

A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember. As she tells the story of her lifelong love for him, he is forced to reinterpret his own past.

8.0

Newsies

Feb 16, 2017

A week in the life of the exploited, child newspaper sellers in turn-of-the-century New York. When their publisher, Joseph Pulitzer, tries to squeeze a little more profit out of their labours, they organize a strike, only to be confronted with the Pulitzer's hard-ball tactics.

7.9

Ben-Hur

Nov 18, 1959

In 26 AD, Judah Ben-Hur, a Jew in ancient Judea, opposes the occupying Roman empire. Falsely accused by a Roman childhood friend-turned-overlord of trying to kill the Roman governor, he is put into slavery and his mother and sister are taken away as prisoners.

10.0

National Theatre Live: Chewing Gum Dreams

Mar 19, 2014

Meet Tracey Gordon. Friendship, sex, UK garage, school, teachers, periods, emergency contraception, raves, tampons, white boys, God, money. Friendship. The more she learns about the world the less she understands.

7.9

Freedom Writers

Jan 5, 2007

A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.

6.6

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him

Apr 7, 2005

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)

10.0

National Theatre Live: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Sep 6, 2012

Christopher, fifteen years old, has an extraordinary brain – exceptional at maths while ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. When he falls under suspicion of killing Mrs Shears' dog Wellington, he records each fact about the event in the book he is writing to solve the mystery of the murder. But his detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that upturns his world.

0.0

Me

Nov 28, 1973

Tomby, a challenged teenage boy, manipulates his family who cater to his every desire. Only his twin brother Greg treats him as a human being capable of development. A powerful drama / dark comedy with a surprising ending.

7.3

The Illusionist

Aug 18, 2006

With his eye on a lovely aristocrat, a gifted illusionist named Eisenheim uses his powers to win her away from her betrothed, a crown prince. But Eisenheim's scheme creates tumult within the monarchy and ignites the suspicion of a dogged inspector.

7.7

Gloomy Sunday

Oct 21, 1999

Budapest in the thirties. The restaurant owner Laszlo hires the pianist András to play in his restaurant. Both men fall in love with the beautiful waitress Ilona who inspires András to his only composition. His song of Gloomy Sunday is, at first, loved and then feared, for its melancholic melody triggers off a chain of suicides. The fragile balance of the erotic ménage à trois is sent off kilter when the German Hans goes and falls in love with Ilona as well.

8.0

Poland 1939: When German Soldiers Became War Criminals

Aug 31, 2019

September 1st, 1939. Nazi Germany invades Poland. The campaign is fast, cruel and ruthless. In these circumstances, how is it that ordinary German soldiers suddenly became vicious killers, terrorizing the local population? Did everyone turn into something worse than wild animals? The true story of the first World War II offensive that marks in the history of infamy the beginning of a carnage and a historical tragedy.

7.0

God Does Not Believe in Us Anymore

May 16, 1982

After his father is murdered by the Nazis in 1938, a young Viennese Jew named Ferry Tobler flees to Prague, where he joins forces with another expatriate and a sympathetic Czech relief worker. Together with other Jewish refugees, the three make their way to Paris, and, after spending time in a French prison camp, eventually escape to Marseille, from where they hope to sail to a safe port.

6.2

Naked Among Wolves

Apr 10, 1963

Based on a true story of inmates at KZ Buchenwald that risked their lives to hide a small Jewish boy shortly before the liberation of the camp.

6.7

Jakob the Liar

Sep 16, 1999

In 1944 Poland, a Jewish shop keeper named Jakob is summoned to ghetto headquarters after being caught out after curfew. While waiting for the German Kommondant, Jakob overhears a German radio broadcast about Russian troop movements. Returned to the ghetto, the shopkeeper shares his information with a friend and then rumors fly that there is a secret radio within the ghetto.

7.2

Stanisław Lem: Autor Solaris

Nov 2, 2016

An account of the life and work of the Polish writer Stanisław Lem (1921-2006), a key figure in science fiction literature involved in mysteries and paradoxes that need to be enlightened.

6.4

Company

Dec 10, 1996

Set in modern upper-crust Manhattan, an exploration of love and commitment as seen through the eyes of a charming perpetual bachelor questioning his single state and his enthusiastically married, slightly envious friends.