[NEohioPAL] "ANNE FRANK" Observer-Reporter Review!

[North Canton Playhouse]

This is a review the North Canton Playhouse recieved in the Jackson Observer-North Canton Reporter on Thursday October 4th for "The Diary of Anne Frank."
  
(As seen in the Observer-Reporter)
  North Canton Playhouse presents powerful testimony...
  By Tom Wachunas - Observer-Reporter
  
No one in the North Canton Playhosue organization could have foreseen the irony in the timing of its current production of "The Diary of Anne Frank."
  The play opened last Friday just days after Iranian president Ahmadinejad asserted his revisionist view of history by denying the Holocaust, among other rantings.
  Seeing the play now is a bittersweet reality check.
  The play, written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, is an autobiographical drama about a 13-year-old Dutch Jewish girl and her family who, along with another family, go into hiding from the Nazies during World War II.
  For two years, with the aid of two Dutch nationals, the group lived in a cramped attic in Amsterdam before being discovered and taken to death camps at the height of the allied invasion. Of the eight captives, only Otto Frank, Anne's father, survived.
  Director Mary McManaway wisely chose to present the character of Anne nota s the day-dreaming, soft-edged martyr in the making portrayed by Millie Perkins in the 1959 movie, but as a volatile, quirky adolescent on the difficult cusp of womanhood.
  Dana Anderson's portrayal of Anne amply meets the challenge. Her incessant chatter and teasing is alternately endearing and esasperating - even enraging - to everyone as they negotiate their claustrophobic surroundings.
  Her gadfly energy is counterbalanced with a girlish sweetness, and an abiding belief in the goodness of humanity, tempered with darker self-doubting that she shares with the shy and awkward Peter, played with disarming charm by Jason Leupold.
  Ted Paynter's Otto Frank is a convincing picture of the sensitive father and wise leader who must broker an uneasy peace among clashing personalities and mounting anger. He's notably poignant as he tries to mend the rift between Anne and her mother, portrayed by Donna Rasicci, with heart-wrenching sincerity.
  For as much as the threat of death at the hands of the Nazes is the ever-present backdrop for this story, the heart of the drama is in the struggles of the characters as they try to live with dignity and hope amid the darkness of their own short-comings.
  To that end, the fine ensemble of 10 actors here turns in an emotionally explosive performance that points to tht capacity humans have to inflict pain on one another. In a pivotal scene, Otto throws up his arms in dismay and cries out, "We don't need the Nazis to destroy us. We're destroying ourselves!"
  Another particularly fierce scene brings all of the attic captives together in an angry confrontation with Mr. Van Daan after he's caught stealing food. Mrs. Frank wants to banish him while Mrs. Van Daan, in a startlingly real, fevered portrayal by Ginger Dougan, pleads with Otto to save her husband.
  In the chaos, news of the D-day invasion arrives, and the ugly emotional tide turns to a scene of joy and forgiveness. What resonates through it all is Don Milbrodt's portrait of Mr. Van Daan, utterly drained and collapsed in tearful remorse. 
  Ultimately the joy of that moment would be short lived. Anne Frank, who wrote in one of her diary entries, prophetically enough, "I want to go on living even after my death," died in the Belsen death camp.
  The play is important not just because it is a powerful documentary of a real moment in human history. It remains a searing reminder the world still has much work to do if it is to squelch the fires of ignorance, denial and intolerance and give rise to the hope Anne Frank so desperately lived for.
  "The Diary of Anne Frank" at the North Canton Playhouse, located inside Hoover High School/Fridays and Saturdays at 8p.m. and Sundays at 2:30p.m. through Oct. 14/Tickets: Adults: $12 , Seniors and Students $11/ For reservations call: (330) 494-1613.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.neohiopal.org/pipermail/neohiopal-neohiopal.org/attachments/20071005/3537a2fd/attachment-0003.htm>