Leopoldstadt, Huntington Theatre, mainstage, Boston, through October 13. Huntington theatre.org or 617-266-0800

Heritage and identity can be a longtime mystery. Tom Stoppard was born Tomas Straussler in 1937 in the city of Zlin in (then) Czechoslovakia. Only in the 1990's—as the pre-eminent British playwright explains in a 1999 essay entitled "On Turning Out to Be Jewish"—did he actually find out his heritage from his mother. In fact--as he notes in the same piece—"Hitler made her Jewish in 1939." Also, the Nazis exterminated members of their family.

Huntington Theatre—staging the first American production past Broadway of Stoppard's most personal drama "Leopoldstadt"—has excerpted the part of the essay containing these revealing admissions in its very informative playbill. While some audience members may struggle to keep track of the haunting if sometimes overly busy play's very large cast of characters, director Carey Perloff—who sharply handled similar demands with the company's earlier triumphant staging of "The Lehman Trilogy—has powerfully captured Stoppard's timely insights about family, identity and the Holocaust.

Adding significantly to the clarity of Perloff's singular achievement are the playbill's detailed family tree—theatergoers would do well to arrive early to examine it—and a stunning design effort that captures the scope and range of Stoppard's play. Ken MacDonald's elegant high-ceiling Vienna apartment design evolves from the seeming 1899 security of the interconnected Merz and Jacobovicz families—including converted and interfaith members as well as proudly Jewish ones—to the 1938 Kristallnacht effects of a Reich requisition. Alex Jaeger's telling costume changes move from stylish 1899 evening wear and 1924 Roaring Twenties flair to much simpler 1938 clothing and casual pieces for the 1955 reunion of survivor children at which details about the fate of family tree members—most perishing at concentration camps—becomes a kind of chilling Yizkor (the traditional Jewish holiday memorial prayer).

Especially vivid is Yuki Izumihara's state of the art projection design that ranges from Jewish tradition to the rise and ravages of Nazism. As matriarch Grandma Emilia Merz—played with majestic authority by Phyllis Kay-- presides over the family Passover Seder, Izumihara's brilliantly provides a backdrop projection of the opening Kiddush (sanctifying prayer) and Ha Lachma Anya(the early Aramaic prayer about Matza)—side by side in Hebrew.

Throughout Stoppard's ultimately cautionary play, characters' commitments to Judaism and Jewish heritage are called into question as their varying views about supposedly safe and sophisticated Vienna—where no less than Brahms visited the family—are tested by Austrian affinities with Germany and the impact of the Anschluss. Stoppard includes meaningful references to Freud—who escaped the Holocaust in England—and converted Mahler. Nael Nacer catches all the unrealistic confidence of Emilia's assimilated son Hermann about being accepted by the higher echelon of Viennese society, while Brenda Meaney has all of the grace and allure of Hermann's non-Jewish wife Gretl. Firdous Bamji finds the conviction of Ludwig—the mathematician husband of Hermann's sister Eva. Nacer and Bamji make fairly cerebral exchanges between Hermann and Ludwig catch fire. Samuel Adams has the right swagger as Gretl's Austrian soldier lover Fritz.

Rebecca Gibel catches survivor Rosa's tenacity, and Adrianne Krstansky evokes pianist Hanna's wistfulness. Joshua Chessin-Yudin—very memorable as the Kippah-wearing son in Huntington's forceful staging of the Joshua Harmon drama "Prayer for the French Republic—is equally convincing here as Rosa's intrepid survivor nephew Nathan. Mishka Yarovoy captures the mixture of confusion and deep curiosity of Stoppard persona Leo—who went to school in England as Leonard Chamberlain.

If Stoppard's play moves inexorably towards grim realities, it does possess some humorous and lighter moments along the way. Look for a humorous stretch in which characters are mistaken for the mohel (Jewish circumciser) who will perform an offstage bris (covenant ceremony). There are also light moments during the Seder. Nacer and Meaney share a sweet waltz. Even so, there are timely reminders of such disturbing facts as America's failure to take in Jewish refugees and Russia's anti-Nazi action only after being attacked.

"Leopoldstadt" stands as a rich if sometimes crowded remembrance of Jewish family ties and traditions. At the same time, it provides a challenge to all theatergoers—both Jewish and non-Jewish—to combat the very pervasive anti-Semitism enabled by complacency.