KC Rep’s The Diary of Anne Frank brings ghosts intimately to life
It’s a familiar story to most of us, yet the Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s revival of The Diary of Anne Frank (by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, adapted here by Wendy Kesselman) more than reacquaints us with the inhabitants of a hiding place in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Over the course of this well-known play’s two acts, they become like old friends, and we want to pull them back from the fate we know lies ahead.
Kesselman’s is a slightly different version from the one we’ve witnessed before. Parts of Anne’s diary previously removed have been reinserted, giving a fuller picture of a precocious, rambunctious, verbose 13-year-old who develops into a young woman before us. The annoyingly spirited middle-schooler at the start brings home the claustrophobia of her family’s situation — Anne compares herself with a bird without wings throwing itself against the bars of its cage — and stands in stark contrast to the adults who grasp the seriousness of what they face. “We must be quiet,” her father implores.
While Rachel Shapiro’s Anne is at the center of the play, her role (at first overplayed) doesn’t dominate, and the cast is stellar. Director Marissa Wolf’s deeply affecting production makes an event of 70-plus years ago feel as near as our distance from the stage, and just as immediate.
Three disparate families move together into rooms behind Otto Frank’s business in 1942. The months expand into years, and the dread increases as we share their fear of being found. Anne, our sometimes narrator, talks of discovery only briefly, too overwhelmed to linger on such thoughts, her suppressed worries expressed in nightmares. They all have nightmares, her father tells her.
As Otto Frank — father, husband, businessman — a strong Lenny Wolpe lends compassion and generosity to an often prickly atmosphere. Peggy Friesen brings quiet power to Otto’s wife, Edith, who maintains emotional balance amid difficult conditions (including a rebellious Anne). As the sometimes bickering and petty Mr. and Mrs. Van Daan, Merle Moores and Victor Raider-Wexler together create an ultimately sympathetic couple and individually bring emotional complexity and depth to their characters. A nuanced Daniel Beeman is a natural as the Van Daan son Peter, a typically awkward but thoughtful teenager. Nicole Marie Green establishes a presence as Anne’s more mature, quiet sister, Margot. And the fussy dentist, Mr. Dussel, as portrayed by an excellent Martin S. Buchanan, also finds his place in a world not of his choosing. (In secondary roles, Shanna Jones and Andy Perkins do good work.)
It’s remarkable, really, that we have this window into the annex and into the very personal matters of these souls. (Anne dreamed of publishing her diary — something that would live on, she tells us, after she dies.) The first act, at 65 minutes, doesn’t feel long, its gravity and tension gradually realized. Act 2 draws us in further, the families now one big dysfunctional clan relying on cooperation amid rationing, privacy invasions and personality conflicts. But the large, open, multilevel set (design by Maya Linke) reflects the quarters’ relative spaciousness more than their cramped conditions.
Having walked the street in Amsterdam where Otto Frank’s business stood (now the location of the Anne Frank museum), I was struck by its place in the center of the city, on one of its main canals, where refugees huddled in the back of a building among the ordinariness of everyday goings-on. It’s a reality difficult to comprehend. Yet this story, in its essential humanity, serves as a pertinent — and painful — reminder of how they, and others, have lived in danger, fearing for their lives.
