[NEohioPAL] Review of "The Diary of Anne Frank" at Cleveland Play House

[Bob Abelman]

CPH’s ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ so much more than a memorial



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics



It’s not often that we go to the theater to feel anguish, futility and the sorrow that stems from inconceivable inhumanity.  We typically go to the theater to escape those feelings.



But Francis Goodrich and Albert Hackett’s dramatization of the writings of a 13-year-old diarist is built for that very purpose.  “The Diary of Anne Frank” offers a first-person account of how Anne, her family and a handful of acquaintances survived in hiding for two years in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam before their capture.  And it asks us to never forget. 



By rediscovering and publishing her now-famous diary after the war, Anne’s father lifted the young girl from among the six million Jews killed by the Nazis and turned her, for many, into the innocent face and hopeful voice of the Holocaust.



The play opened on Broadway in 1955 and won a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award. In 1959, the play was turned into an Oscar-winning film.



In 1997, for a Broadway revival, “The Diary of Anne Frank” was adapted by Wendy Kesselman, who removed much of the pandering sentimentality and placating melodrama of the original work and reasserted the historic Anne’s darker vision, unflattering disclosures, budding sexuality, as well as the diary’s overt Jewishness.  



And in the Cleveland Play House’s revisiting of this play – having staged the earlier incarnation during its 1958-1959 and 1996-1997 seasons – director Laura Kepley finds all its dramatic beats and very human moments, and turns what could easily be an historical re-creation or revered testimonial into a resonating piece of theater.  



For more of this article, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/.
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