GEOPATHOLOGY AND HISTOPATHOLOGY: THEATRICALISING SPACE, HISTORY AND EXILE IN TOM STOPPARD'S LEOPOLDSTADT

Abstract

Tom Stoppard, one of the most fascinating and far-reaching thinkers and playwrights of his time, wrote Leopoldstadt (his last play, 2020) which was staged at Wyndham’s Theatre. Stoppard delved more into his Czech ancestors in Leopoldstadt and portrayed his Jewish family and roots, depicting Hermann Merz’s high class Jewish family in Vienna. While the play is undoubtedly a primary examination of Stoppard's own identification, and portrays a comprehensive history of Europe. Stoppard's play covers nearly a hundred of years and states the narrative of gradual disappearance, dissolution, exile, and homelessness. Focusing on ‘histopathology’ (pathology of historiography/characteristics of identity crises) and Una Chaudhuri’s term ‘Geopathology’, the paper aims at examining Stoppard's play Leopoldstadt and hence provides a different viewpoint on the play's reading. Both geopathology and histopathology have medical definition. Like Chaudhuri’s usage the term geopathology with a different context, my objective is to widen the usage of histopathology as ethnicity, loss, massacre, exile, psychological disorders and characteristics of identity crises in historical context. Chaudhuri repurposes the terms ‘geopathology’ and ‘geopathic disorders’ to characterize the grief brought on by identity crises and horrific memories. Different geographies are defined by ethnicity, nation, and language. Cultural and national identities are frequently created or attributed to certain regions. In her work, Una Chaudhuri discusses the principle “a victimage of location” which transforms the term where one is? into where do you live as if without geography?. The number of family members diminishes as the play goes, and the situation of being homelessness begins to rise in the family atmosphere. Within this context, this paper also describes how Stoppard portrays the geography of exile in Leopoldstadt as a symbol of rootlessness and holocaust within the context of different historical periods