Anne (play)

Last updated
ANNE
Written by Anne Frank, Leon de Winter, Jessica Durlacher
Characters
  • Anne Frank
  • Otto Frank
  • Edith Frank
  • Margot Frank
  • Hermann van Pels
  • Auguste van Pels
  • Peter van Pels
  • Peter Schiff
  • Jan Gies
  • Miep Gies

and others

Date premiered8 May 2014 (2014-05-08)
Place premieredTheater Amsterdam in Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Original language Dutch
SubjectThe years Anne Frank spent in hiding from the German occupation of the Netherlands.
Genre Naturalistic / realistic
biographical biography
SettingThe secret annex behind Otto Frank's company in Amsterdam.

ANNE is a 2014 play dramatising the story of Jewish diarist Anne Frank's period in hiding in the Secret Annex in Amsterdam during the Second World War. The play was the first major new adaptation of Frank's diary since the 1955 play, and was both authorised and initiated by the Anne Frank Foundation in Basel, the organisation set up by Frank's father Otto Frank to preserve his daughter's legacy and work. As such, Anne was the first adaptation allowed to quote literal passages from the diary. After a near two-year run in the Netherlands, the play closed in 2016, and had production runs in Germany [1] and Israel. The play also formed the basis for the first German film adaptation of the diary.

Contents

Synopsis

ANNE begins with a framing narrative set in Paris some years after the end of the Second World War. A girl in her early twenties, a student at a prestigious Parisian university, meets with friends and fellow students in a Paris restaurant. There, she runs into Dutch emigré Peter Schiff, who, like herself, has survived the war and has since established a publishing business in Paris. The girl reveals herself to be Anne Frank, a childhood friend of Schiff's from Amsterdam. She tells him her story, in chronological order, of the time between June 1942 and August 1944. Anne Frank subsequently frequently steps into and out of the narrative and back into the frame story to talk to Schiff, who remains part of the play as a confidante of Anne's.

The story jumps back in time to Anne Frank's thirteenth birthday in the Frank family home at Merwedeplein in Amsterdam. Anne is given a red and white checkered autograph book which she decides to use as a diary. A few weeks later, Anne's sister Margot Frank is summoned to report to a Nazi work camp in Germany, and their father, Otto Frank, decides to take the family into hiding in the annex at the back of his former company in central Amsterdam.

The family arrive in the annex, aided by Otto Frank's former colleagues and helpers Miep Gies and Jan Gies. A week later, they are joined by the Van Pels family: Otto's business partner Hermann, his wife Auguste and their teenage son Peter. Later that year, Jewish dentist Fritz Pfeffer also joins. Tensions between the two families begin to rise, and similarly between Anne and Pfeffer, with whom she is made to share a room. Anne finds solace in her diary, passages of which she reads out or relates to Schiff. Anne lives through puberty, her teenage years, conflicts with her family, and a burgeoning sexuality, but is forced to undergo it all in the cramped 500 square foot of the annex.

After nearly two years, the secret annex is discovered and the eight Jews in hiding are taken away by German soldiers and Dutch police. Otto Frank, the only inhabitant of the annex to survive the war, tells in a monologue of what happened to the two families and to Fritz Pfeffer after their arrest, their transit to camp Westerbork, and their deportation to Auschwitz, where the eight part ways. The play ends with a faint memory of Anne and Margot, slumped together in Bergen Belsen concentration camp where both would perish, surrounded by a crowd of anonymous concentration camp victims. Anne steps out of the tableau one final time, speaks a passage from her diary about her ambition to become an author, and disappears into a sunrise.

Production

Theater Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Exterior (front) of the building, with its logo visible on the right, and a poster for theatre production 'ANNE' on the left. Theater Amsterdam exterior with 'ANNE' poster.jpg
Theater Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Exterior (front) of the building, with its logo visible on the right, and a poster for theatre production 'ANNE' on the left.

ANNE opened in Theater Amsterdam on May 8, 2014, in the presence of king Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Buddy Elias, at the time the last remaining family member of the Franks. The initiative for the production had come from the Anne Frank Foundation in Basel, set up by Otto Frank after the war to safeguard the legacy of Anne Frank and her writing, and to educate about the Holocaust. This meant that ANNE was the first adaptation of the diary to be allowed to quote direct passages, whereas earlier version had had to resort to rephrasing Frank's literal wording.

Purpose-built for ANNE by production company Imagine Nation, Theater Amsterdam is an 1100-seat theatre with a circular auditorium, allowing for quick scene changes through the use of a track system on which sets can be moved speedily into place by being driven around the audience seating banks. The theatre's architecture is modelled on a temporary theatre in Katwijk, home to Soldaat van Oranje, the longest-running musical in Dutch theatre history created by the same artistic team as ANNE.

The scale of the newly built venue allowed the producers, Tony-award winner Robin de Levita and former head of Sony Television Kees Abrahams, to recreate several sets in life size and with historical accuracy. Sets included the entire secret annex, Otto Frank's company's offices at Prinsengracht 263, as well as an apartment block from Amsterdam's Merwedeplein where the Frank family lived in the early years of the war. To ensure visibility to the audience, the annex part of the stage set was mounted on a revolve which could be raised and lowered as needed. During performance, images from the original hand-written diary, as well as historical film fragments and photos, were projected around the set. To allow for international visitors, a system of seatback-mounted iPads with real-time subtitles or audio dubbing in eight languages was installed.

To play Anne Frank, an extensive set of auditions was held, and the role was ultimately given to Rosa da Silva, [2] a Dutch actress of half-Portuguese descent who, at the time, was in her final year at the Academy of Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam. Direction was by Theu Boermans [3] - then artistic director of the national theatre of the Netherlands - with Teunkie Van Der Sluijs as resident director. [4] Set design was by Austrian designer Bernhard Hammer. Rob Das reprised his role as helper Jan Gies from the Ben Kingsley-led ABC miniseries Anne Frank: The Whole Story. After the 2014 world premiere in Amsterdam, subsequent productions took place at the Ernst Deutsch Theater in Hamburg in 2015 and in Israel in 2016.

Stage set for the theatre production 'ANNE:' the re-created Opekta offices (left) and the Secret Annex (right) where Anne Frank and her family hid. The Annex part is constructed on a 360 degree revolving platform. 'ANNE' stage set.jpg
Stage set for the theatre production 'ANNE:' the re-created Opekta offices (left) and the Secret Annex (right) where Anne Frank and her family hid. The Annex part is constructed on a 360 degree revolving platform.

Characters

Names of the world premiere cast are in brackets.

Critical reception

ANNE received critical acclaim from the international press, with major international news outlets ranging from The New York Times, CNN, Die Zeit, Haaretz, Le Monde and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung attending [5] the world premiere in Amsterdam, the latter headlining "ANNE is a major event". [6] The Times wrote: "The Dutch audience stood to applaud. Me, I was sobbing. Anger, pity, couldn’t help it." [7]

In the Dutch press, responses were largely positive, ranging from five star reviews [8] to critical commentary on the scale of the production. [9] The production was selected for a special jury prize at the prestigious Nederlands Theater Festival in 2014, [10] as well as the 2014 Nationale Innovatieprijs, the first time a theatre production won the award. [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Otto Frank</span> Father of Anne Frank (1889–1980)

Otto Heinrich Frank was the father of Anne Frank. He edited and published the first edition of her diary in 1947 and advised on its later theatrical and cinematic adaptations. In the 1950s and the 1960s, he established European charities in his daughter's name and founded the trust which preserved his family's wartime hiding place, the Anne Frank House, in Amsterdam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miep Gies</span> Dutch citizen who hid Anne Frank (1909–2010)

Hermine "Miep" Gies was one of the Dutch citizens who hid Anne Frank, her family and four other Dutch Jews from the Nazis in an annex above Otto Frank's business premises during World War II. She was Austrian by birth, but in 1920, at the age of eleven, she was taken in as a foster child by a Dutch family in Leiden to whom she became very attached. Although she was only supposed to stay for six months, this stay was extended to one year because of frail health, after which Gies chose to remain with them, living the rest of her life in the Netherlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Frank</span> Jewish diarist and Holocaust victim (1929–1945)

Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank was a German-born Jewish girl who kept a diary documenting her life in hiding amid Nazi persecution during the German occupation of the Netherlands. A celebrated diarist, Frank described everyday life from her family's hiding place in an Amsterdam attic. She gained fame posthumously and became one of the most-discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust with the 1947 publication of The Diary of a Young Girl, which documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944. It is one of the world's best-known books and has been the basis for several plays and films.

<i>Anne Frank Remembered</i> 1995 British documentary film

Anne Frank Remembered is a 1995 British documentary film produced and directed by Jon Blair about the life and posthumously published diary of the German-Jewish diarist Anne Frank, who spent most of her life in the Netherlands. The film was produced in association with the Anne Frank House, Disney Channel, and the BBC, and features narration by Kenneth Branagh and extracts from Frank's diary read by Glenn Close. It originally aired on television in April 1995 before it was screened theatrically by Sony Pictures Classics in February 1996.

<i>The Diary of a Young Girl</i> Diary by Anne Frank

The Diary of a Young Girl, commonly referred to as The Diary of Anne Frank, is a book of the writings from the Dutch-language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944, and Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. Anne's diaries were retrieved by Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl. Miep gave them to Anne's father, Otto Frank, the family's only survivor, just after the Second World War was over.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karl Silberbauer</span> SS Nazi Officer, responsible for the arrest of Anne Frank and her family

Karl Josef Silberbauer was an Austrian police officer, Schutzstaffel (SS) member, and undercover investigator for the West German Bundesnachrichtendienst. He was stationed in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam during World War II, where he was promoted to the rank of Hauptscharführer. In 1963, Silberbauer, by then an inspector in the Vienna police, was exposed as the commander of the 1944 Gestapo raid on the Anne Frank House Secret Annex and the arrests of Anne Frank, her fellow fugitives, and two of their protectors, Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margot Frank</span> Older sister of Anne Frank and Holocaust victim (1926–1945)

Margot Betti Frank was the elder daughter of Otto Frank and Edith Frank and the elder sister of Anne Frank. Margot's deportation order from the Gestapo hastened the Frank family into hiding. According to the diary of her younger sister, Anne, Margot kept a diary of her own, but no trace of it has ever been found. She died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp from a typhus outbreak.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fritz Pfeffer</span> German physician

Friedrich "Fritz" Pfeffer was a German dentist and Jewish refugee who hid with Anne Frank and her family and the Van Pels family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. He perished in the Neuengamme concentration camp in Northern Germany. Pfeffer was given the pseudonym Albert Dussel in Frank's diary, and remains known as such in many editions and adaptations of the publication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jan Gies</span> Dutch Resistance member; Dutch Righteous Among the Nations; World War II humanitarian

Jan Augustus Gies was a member of the Dutch Resistance who, with his wife, Miep, helped hide Anne Frank, her sister Margot, their parents Otto and Edith, the van Pels family, and Fritz Pfeffer from Nazi persecution during the occupation of the Netherlands by aiding them as they resided in the Secret Annex.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victor Kugler</span> Austrian person who hid Anne Frank

Victor Kugler was one of the people who helped hide Anne Frank and her family and friends during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. In Anne Frank's posthumously published diary, Het Achterhuis, known in English as The Diary of a Young Girl, he was referred to under the pseudonym Mr. Kraler.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bep Voskuijl</span> Dutch secretary who helped hide Anne Frank (1919–1983)

Elisabeth "Bep" Voskuijl was a resident of Amsterdam who helped conceal Anne Frank and her family from Nazi persecution during the occupation of the Netherlands. In the early versions of Het Achterhuis, known in English as The Diary of a Young Girl, she was given the pseudonym "Elli Vossen".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edith Frank</span> Mother of Anne Frank (1900–1945)

Edith Frank was the mother of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank and her older sister Margot. After the family were discovered in hiding in Amsterdam during the German occupation, she was transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Opekta</span> Former German pectin and spice company

Opekta was a German pectin and spice company that existed between 1928 and 1995. It is notable for its Dutch operation being based in the building at Prinsengracht 263 that later became the Anne Frank House. Opekta was based in Cologne and expanded into the Netherlands in 1933, at which time Otto Frank moved from Germany to Amsterdam to become managing director of the new Dutch operation. Otto Frank was in charge of the manufacturing and distribution of the pectin-based gelling preparations, to be used in jam making.

<i>The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank</i> 1988 television film

The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank is a 1988 television film directed by John Erman. It is based on Miep Gies's 1988 book Anne Frank Remembered. The film was broadcast as part of an ad hoc network, Kraft Golden Showcase Network. Playwright William Hanley received an Emmy for his script. The film premiered on CBS on April 17, 1988.

<i>Anne Frank: The Whole Story</i> Television miniseries

Anne Frank: The Whole Story is a 2001 two-part biographical war drama television miniseries based on the 1998 book Anne Frank: The Biography by Melissa Müller. The television miniseries aired on ABC on May 20 and 21, 2001. The television miniseries starred Ben Kingsley, Brenda Blethyn, Hannah Taylor-Gordon and Lili Taylor. Controversially, but in keeping with the claim made by Melissa Müller, the television miniseries asserts that the anonymous betrayer of the Frank family was the office cleaner, when in fact the betrayer's identity has not been definitively established. A disagreement between the producers of the television miniseries and the Anne Frank Foundation about the validity of this and other details led to the withdrawal of their endorsement of the dramatization, which prevented the use of any quotations from the writings of Anne Frank appearing within the television miniseries. Both Kingsley and Taylor-Gordon received Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations for their performances as Otto Frank and Anne Frank, respectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Frank House</span> Writers house and museum in Amsterdam

The Anne Frank House is a writer's house and biographical museum dedicated to Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank. The building is located on a canal called the Prinsengracht, close to the Westerkerk, in central Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

The Diary of Anne Frank is a BBC adaptation, in association with France 2, of The Diary of a Young Girl originally written by Anne Frank from 1942 to 1944 and adapted for television by Deborah Moggach.

Johannes Hendrik Voskuijl was one of the people who helped to hide Anne Frank and the other people of the Secret Annex in Amsterdam. In the earliest editions of Het Achterhuis, known in English as The Diary of Anne Frank, Voskuijl is referred to as "Mr. Vossen", as he was the father of helper Bep Voskuijl, who is named "Elli Vossen" in the diary. Voskuijl built the famous bookcase that covered the hiding place.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sanne Ledermann</span> Friend of Anne and Margot Frank (1928–1943)

Susanne "Sanne" Ledermann was a German Jewish girl who was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp. She was best-known for her friendship with sisters Anne and Margot Frank.

References

  1. ↑ "Anne celebrated its premiere in Hamburg". Anne Frank Foundation. Retrieved 1 June 2018. [ verification needed ]
  2. ↑ "Rosa da Silva wilde heel graag Anne Frank worden". NU. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  3. ↑ "The life of Anne Frank". Deutschland.de. Fazit Communication GmbH.
  4. ↑ Doyle, Fiona. "In conversation with theatre-maker, Teunkie Van Der Sluijs". The Artiscape. The Artiscape Magazine. Retrieved 2 February 2024.
  5. ↑ "Standing ovation for Anne in Amsterdam". Anne Frank Foundation. Archived from the original on 22 June 2018. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  6. ↑ Schumer, Dirk. "Das Mädchen, das gegen den Tod schrieb" (PDF). Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 June 2018. Retrieved 10 May 2014.
  7. ↑ Aaronovitch, David. "Anne Frank's story lives again in Amsterdam" (PDF). The Times. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 June 2018. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  8. ↑ Jongeling, Anne. "Recensie: Anne het theaterstuk". NU. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  9. ↑ Jansen, Hein. "ANNE zwalkt tussen intiem toneelstuk en theaterspektakel". De Volkskrant. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  10. ↑ Jansen, Hein (24 May 2014). "ANNE ondanks matige recensies genomineerd voor Theater Festival". De Volkskrant. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  11. ↑ Janssens, Sander. "Voorstelling Anne wint Nationale Innovatieprijs 2014". Theaterkrant. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
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