Anne Frank revisited

On the 85th anniversary of her birth, a new play seeks to recreate the life of one of the world’s most tragic Holocaust victims.

By REUVEN HAMMER
Actress Ro Sa de Silva plays the part of Anne Frank in the new play ‘Anne'. (photo credit: KURT VAN DER ELST)
Actress Ro Sa de Silva plays the part of Anne Frank in the new play ‘Anne'.
(photo credit: KURT VAN DER ELST)
It is not very often that a theater is built in order to house one specific production, but that is exactly what happened recently in Holland – when the Theater Amsterdam was created for the new dramatization of The Diary of Anne Frank, titled simply Anne.
The story of Anne Frank is so well-known, selling millions of copies in innumerable languages, dramatized on world stages and made into a prize-winning movie, that there would not seem to be any need to present it yet again – much less build a new theater for it. Thus, when I was recently in New York, I was intrigued to read that this totally new play was about to be produced in Amsterdam.
Having read the book when it was first published and seen the play when it premiered in New York decades ago, I wondered what this new production had to add, and why it was undertaken at all.
Since I had planned to stop in Amsterdam on the way back to Israel, I took the opportunity to see for myself and meet some of the people involved.
So why was an entirely new production commissioned after all these years? Robin de Levita, one of the producers, explained that the initiative for this had come from the Frank Foundation, the organization that surviving family patriarch Otto Frank had founded to control the rights to the diary and utilize all the profits for educational purposes. Their feeling was that a new generation needed a new approach. What everyone knew and took for granted 60 years ago was no longer common knowledge, as current events had turned into old history.
It was important, therefore, to find a way to place the story within the broader context of the history of the Holocaust. Furthermore, the earlier play had been based on the incomplete diary, a text that Otto Frank had edited in order to omit sensitive material concerning Anne’s sexuality and her troubled relationship with her mother.
Newer editions include the entire uncensored text.
Furthermore, more information has now been revealed by other sources not in the diary, concerning their years in hiding and describing the fate of Anne and the rest of the family after their discovery. All of this could now be included in the new play.
De Levita also explained that the concept of this production was to give as real an experience of the story as possible, and for this reason they decided to present it specifically in Amsterdam, where it took place, in the Dutch language, and to recreate the entire building, according to scale in the theatrical space. To do so they designed and built this theater, with an enormous playing area, two or three times the width of most stages, with movable walls on either side of the audience on which actual stills and films from that era could be projected.
Jessica Durlacher – who with her husband, Leon de Winter, was commissioned to write the script – explained further that the actual text of the diary was used as much as possible, with pages from the original manuscript projected from time to time on the side walls. None of the fictionalized things that had been in the first play appear here; everything is as authentic as possible.
One example, she explained, was the climactic scene in which the hiding place is discovered. The original play ends with the Germans banging on the door and bursting in, in a way that is very theatrically effective but not accurate. What really happened and what is shown in Anne is the silent entry of Dutch troops led by one German, with the scene illustrating how surprised everyone was. The German then asks for all their valuables. Ironically, he empties a case for watches and jewelry – the very case in which Anne has placed her writings – scattering them where they would later be found.
The writers also felt that the background to the story – world events, the rise of the Nazis, the things happening to Jews everywhere, the concentration camps – had to be added, since the new generation does not know it well. This was accomplished through the use of films and pictures from that time. The story of Jews in hiding is then broadened to include the entire spectrum of Jewish persecution, including ghettos and death camps.
Both Durlacher and her husband, well-known novelists who have touched on the Holocaust in their previous writings, are children of survivors. For them, writing this play, their first, was therefore an intense personal experience, an opportunity to bring this story to a new generation, to educate them about the Holocaust and to make Anne into a real person – with strengths and weaknesses, vibrant and alive, happy and angry. In doing so, they emphasize the tragedy of not only of the death of Anne but of all who died, each one an individual with so much to live for.
And the performance lives up to its expectations. The framework of the play is presented at the end of Anne’s life, when suffering from typhus, weak and feverish, she dreams of the future she hoped for herself as a writer and sees herself reliving her story, relating it to a future publisher. The projection of films prepares the audience for the background of the times, as the Nazis occupy Holland, following which the stage reveals the apartment building in which the Franks lived their comfortable life. That is, until they decided to go into hiding when their older daughter, Margot, received an order to report to a work camp.
We then see the entire building in which the family is to hide, several floors high.
Throughout the play there is action on all the levels, such as would have been going on in reality, as people are constantly engaged in their day-to-day activities. The building rotates as well so that we can see all parts of it when necessary, and the effect is startlingly realistic. One has the sometimes uncomfortable feeling of being a voyeur spying on the lives of real people, similar to what Hitchcock achieved in Rear Window.
Since they are also speaking Dutch, the illusion of being there as a witness to what really happened is uncanny.
The excellent cast never fails to convey the experience of reality and authenticity.
One does not have the feeling that someone is dramatizing events theatrically, but that this is the way people act. Nothing is overdone.
For the critical role of Anne, they chose a young woman who is in the last year of her studies at drama school, Rosa de Silva. She is of Portuguese descent, not Jewish – although many from Portugal have Jewish ancestry – with dark hair and eyes, enough to suggest a resemblance to the Anne Frank we know from the photographs.
Since she is not Jewish, the actress made it her business to consult with a local rabbi several times, also attending Shabbat services and participating in meetings of a Jewish youth group. The cast also visited Auschwitz, though De Silva had been there previously with her high school class when they were studying the Holocaust period.
Although at least twice Anne’s age, De Silva looks very young, and on stage has captured the body language of an adolescent, along with the expected vocal inflections and mannerisms.
The play stresses Anne’s adolescence, which makes it very meaningful to youngsters in the audience who can identify with many of her feelings, even though her experience is intensified by the terrible circumstances under which she had to live.
The ending of the play is particularly poignant. After they are all led silently away, Otto comes forward, and in a touching monologue tells of the fate of the family and of the last seven months of Anne’s life. The speech is based on witnesses who were with her then. We see sisters Anne and Margot in the camp, huddled together and comforting one another in the freezing snow. Anne hesitatingly voices her hopes – hopes that cannot possible be realized – as she walks slowly away and disappears.
At the performance I attended, this last scene was followed by total silence, until the cast came forward and received a standing ovation.
Although the play is in Dutch, beginning in July simultaneous translations will be made available in English and several other languages. Amsterdam is a center of tourism for people from all over the world, including Israelis and Jews from the Diaspora; the hope is that Anne will become a part of the itinerary for everyone, Jews and non-Jews alike.
For Jewish tourists, in addition to the magnificent Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue, the new Jewish Historical Museum housed in several Ashkenazi synagogues and Anne Frank House, this new production should add an in-depth experience, in which The Diary of Anne Frank comes startlingly alive.