The Diary of Anne Frank
The Diary of Anne Frank
Adapted by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett and Wendy Kesselman
Directed by Tanya Roller
Starring Jenny Ornstein
Breakthrough Theatre, Winter Park, FL</strong>
As the Nazis rose to power in Weimar Germany, some Jews were prescient enough to pack up and leave while they could, although many of them thought Dutch neutrality would protect them from the Panzers. The Frank family fell into that trap – the tolerance and middle class opportunity of Amsterdam held them too long, and they were lucky to hide in a tiny apartment over a factory, keeping still as mice for two years.
In this troubling adaptation of a girl’s diary that miraculously escaped, we move in to the claustrophobic worlds of the Franks and their cell mates the Van Daans. Otto Frank (Marty Radner) stays hopeful and positive while his wife Edith (Jackie Levine) becomes passive yet hardworking. Opposite them we see stuffy Mr. Van Daan (Kenneth Jardine) and his fastidious wife (Karen Edwards-Hill) who brings her own chamber pot to the war. Anne (Orenstein) flames with teen hormones, and sees the hiding as an adventure, not realizing that adventures often leave you cold, hungry and dead. She eventually falls in love with Peter Daan, a nice enough boy who has trouble with his French. Adding the dollop of stereotypical Judaism is David Strauss as latecomer Mr. Dussel, the dentist. He does his prayers while nudging and kvetching and worrying about his cat allergy. All form an uncomfortable detent as the days are filled with small victories and huge disappointments. When the Allies advance, the retreating Nazis destroy whatever they can, leaving only Otto left to mourn with us.
With the claustrophobia intensified by Breakthrough’s small space and lighting derived mostly form flashlights and small carbon filament hanging on stage, this show is a tear jerker as well as a character study of people in desperate straits with their options stagnating and finally evaporating. Orenstein makes precocious Anne, and is often strident; Edwards-Hill’s middle class pretentions form what comic counterpoint can exist in this space, while Mr. Daan seems to simply occupy her space. Supplies from the outside arrive via Miep (Marion Marsh) and death via the ushers. It’s a sadly moving story, shoehorned into a space that is much smaller psychologically than it is physically.
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