Anne Frank’s diary is about as well-known as books get, translated into dozens of languages, and selling millions of copies. It also prompted an often-performed play and a well-known movie, both adapted from the diary.
But now a new Anne Frank play, telling the story of the decisions, difficulties and struggles that Otto Frank faces taking the diary itself from paper to publication, has debuted at Theater for The New City.
Written in Dutch as Het Achterhuis, Anne Frank’s diary became her father Otto’s mission – and a way of finding meaning in life after so many horrors. It would be published around much of the world, including the United States, where it would also prompt a play and a movie, but only after a struggle that amounts to a different, second Anne Frank story.
“The Diary,” a new play by Theater for the New City playwright in residence Claude Solnik and directed by Deborah Rupy, is about Otto and Anne, and the journey of the diary to publication and renown.
It has been playing to full houses at Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave., since opening on Jan. 10 and runs Thurs.-Sat. at 8 and Sun. at 3 through January 25.
We see Otto struggle about whether to seek to publish an inherently private text, even if Anne wanted it published, what to remove, whether to protect other family members from critical comments, rejection from editors who think it’s a work of little value and people who can’t believe Anne could have written this at such a young age.
The play is the latest example of a kind of Anne Frank awakening, including Anne Frank: The Exhibition at The Center for Jewish History at 15 West 16th St., in Manhattan’s Union Square neighborhood through Feb. 1.
Eva Schloss, Anne Frank’s stepsister as well as a Holocaust survivor, just passed away, also reminding many of a time that is at most part of the recent past.
“She was an extraordinary person. I’m sad about her passing,” said Gabriel Sanders, director of special projects at the Center for Jewish History. “I know how exceptional she was.”
“The Diary” brings another Anne Frank story to life, as we watch scenes in flashbacks when Otto reads the diary, and see her, her sister Margot and his wife Edith as he reads and in his thoughts as they talk.
Charles E. Gerber portrays Otto, Eva Gozé portrays Anne, Deborah Rupy plays Edith and Gabi Schwartz plays Margot, rounding out the family.
Hugo Persson plays Peter, Patricia Magno plays Miep, Laura Jones plays an editor and relative, Cameron Reilly-Steele plays Tomasz and an officer, Karen Freer plays Judith Jones and Rene Sambrailo plays Jan.
“I am Dutch and I learned about Anne Frank and her story,” Eva Gozé, who is playing Anne, said of a long familiarity. “This play brings to light different parts of the story that I wasn’t really aware of.”
Charles E. Gerber, who has appeared on Broadway and national tours, took on the role of Otto, seeking to bring him to life with words a little bit the way Anne’s words have kept her with us even today.
“The challenge of this play is starting with someone coming back from unimaginable horrors, coming back from the camps, feeling survivor guilt, a term most people are aware of. He’s still alive. Like Eli Weisel, how do they just not give up?” Gerber said. “And then have the passion and another calling of resuscitating the memories of his loved one through the inspired writing of his second child who he reluctantly comes to realize was one of the most talented souls he ever encountered.”
In the play, we see Otto searching for a publisher who will take the book, but respect it and treat it, and his daughter, well. And he struggles with the desire to make his daughter’s voice heard, but without a desire to turn her words and a tragic story into entertainment.
“He had to find someone with the right set of affinities, with the wherewithal to publish,” Gerber said, noting Otto Frank would find Judith Jones, arguably the perfect publisher for this book. “And the sensitivity to his concerns of protecting the verity of the story.”
Although Gozé read the book as a child in the Netherlands, where Anne Frank is not just a literary figure but someone who made her home there, said she learned another Anne Frank story from this script – about the diary’s journey.
“I wasn’t aware of how hard he had to fight to find somebody to publish it, the negotiations he has to make with himself to make Anne’s dream come true,” Gozé said. “I see it as a father-and-daughter story. I feel like it’s very much about him fighting to make the dream of his daughter, who is no longer there, come true.”
Gerber said daily he learns more about Otto Frank, who died in 1980, but that recreating the character on stage is complicated.
“I’m trying to understand how he survived. He was the sole survivor from the Annex, the only person who came back. Peter was alive at the liberation. He was a victim of starvation and disease,” Gerber said. “He had the constitution that forced him to survive. I don’t think he even tried to answer how. He just did.”
Gerber sees the story as important, but also as a recognition that Otto Frank, a father, fought hard for his daughter.
“The major reason I undertook to do it, after I read it, is that I want to breathe life into him, to make the words flesh, as Peter O’Toole would say,” Gerber said. “It was easy for me to shave my head and shave my beard. I look like him, an older version of him. Filling him up is another matter. That’s the task right now.”
By Claude Solnik
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