Few names, and lives, are as well known as Anne Frank, at least the part that she recorded and recounted. And of course, plays and movies also retell the story of this young woman, her friends, family and captivity hiding from the horrors now known as the Holocaust.
This Anne Frank play (as well as an Otto Frank and Frank family play) is not, however, a retelling of the story everyone knows. It begins when the people who arrested her literally pick up the pages of the diary, deem they have no value and toss them to the floor. They took the candlesticks, but left the diary. That could easily have been the end of it, but of course it wasn't. We follow events as some others pick up those pages and, gradually, a book is born. In addition to telling the story of a book, this play tells the story of a father struggling to bring his daughter, if not back to life, back into the present through her words.
Otto Frank, Anne Frank's father, returned from his own horrors, was given the diary that Miep had picked it up from the floor and kept safe. Otto Frank didn't know what to do with it and I'm sure it was at once an incredibly painful and beautiful moment - when he read Anne’s thoughts.
He wasn't sure whether to try to publish and, suffice it to say, after some reservations decided to try and publish. The world was not waiting for this book - or didn't know it was. Finally, he found someone who was. This play is about that persistence, pain and pleasure, about fathers and daughters and about how Anne Frank despite a pointless death accomplished her dream to be an author. And it's about the people - heroes in a way- who stood up for her and her writing and work and helped.
The first reader for what would become the diary's U.S. publisher saw nothing special here. This was just a girl writing her thoughts and recounting events with her family. A well known editor vowed to fight and come up with a way to get it published. The diary survived even if its author didn't- and this script and sow is about that story including flashbacks. The actress portraying Anne, it turns out, is from the Netherlands, speaks Dutch and certainly knows Anne, the story and more, not just as “history” but as “herstory.” Our Otto has played some of the most demanding roles in theater. He is more than ready to bring Otto to the stage as we seek to save another story, of the diary and a father and daughter, from oblivion.
In addition, my family history unfortunately fits in with what happened, including people killed and people who escaped. While Anne Frank's life was pointlessly ended, Anne's words lived on and continue to echo long after that era's horrible events ended. There is no happy ending to Anne Frank’s story, but in one of history’s stranger twists, there is no "end" either.
