For two years, one month and four days, eight people hid in a secret storage annex in Amsterdam, Holland. For two hours and 15 minutes, 10 actors shared one stage to tell their stories.

The Diary of Anne Frank, despite its setting in 1940’s Amsterdam, is a classic American play about family, fear and the human spirit in one of the darkest periods in history.

The drama, which was adapted by Wendy Kesselman in 1997, tells the story of Anne Frank, her family, and the people with whom she hid from the Nazis. It contrasts the vivacity and kindness of Anne with a surrounding fear-riddled environment.

Syracuse Stage brought the struggles of the characters and the chilling circumstances of their hiding to a captivated audience in the opening production on Friday. Directed by Syracuse Stage artistic director Timothy Bond, the play will run through May 3.

The set, a two-story attic with brick chimneys and covered windows, housed the Frank family, the van Daan family and Mr. Dussel, a single dentist. The cramped space captured the claustrophobic and stuffy environment where the eight had to remain every day. They had to keep as quiet as humanly possible between the hours of 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., lest they be discovered and captured.

Anne transforms the cramped space into her playground as she twirls around dreamily exploring, while her mother and sister collapse on tattered furniture with vacant, exhausted stares. She shares a youthful generosity and excitement with her housemates that dims with stress and time, but never fully extinguishes.

Arielle Lever, a junior acting major, got Anne’s bouncy, sometimes annoying nature down early in the play and then successfully matured into a more reserved young woman still filled with promise.

Lever’s character contrasts that of Margot Frank, Anne Frank’s older sister, played by junior musical theatre major, Alexa Silvaggio. Margot’s maturity and generosity compliment Anne’s wide-eyed teenage enthusiasm.

The anchor of the show is Otto Frank, Anne’s respected and kind-hearted father. Actor Joel Leffert carries the weight of the world on his shoulders as he attempts to keep his family and those he hides safe from Nazi internment. Leffert seems like he will never break, which makes his final moment on stage all the more heartbreaking. His closing monologue is chilling and moving, and evoked audible sobs in the audience.

Maureen Silliman plays a deliberate, grounded yet delicate Edith Frank, who longs for her daughter’s affection and is met with Anne’s deep antagonism through most of the show.

In direct contrast to Edith is the bubbly, sentimental Mrs. van Daan, played with charming and magnetic warmth by Catherine Lynn Davis.

Other notable performances include a shy, awkward but adorable Peter, played by sophomore acting major Brad Koed.

Koed and Lever’s chemistry show in Anne and Peter’s sweet young romance as the two sneak up to the attic to share first kisses and meaningful conversation.

Romances, Hanukkah celebrations and group dinners almost make you forget about the perilous circumstances outside, but right before you do, a siren, bomb raid or radio broadcast of Hitler’s glaring voice interrupts any growing sense of peace. This is the cadence for most of the show: growing normalcy met by a shaking reminder of reality.

Videos of marching Nazi armies and the haunting faces of people starving in internment camps project on to Anne’s bedroom wall. While the images set a historic background, they often feel disjointed from the rest of the play.

Anne once wrote in her diary, ‘Later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl.’

Sixty-five years later, however, her diary has been translated into more than 100 languages, made into movies and plays, and found a permanent place in the canon of great memoirs. Anne’s diary was originally published in 1947 and edited by her father Otto Frank, the only survivor of the eight.

A revised edition was released in 1995 including more parts of the diary. The play was adapted by Wendy Kesselman from Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett’s 1955 play.

Anne Frank is a difficult show to pull off, but Syracuse Stage captures Anne’s spirit with this challenging production.

‘When I write I shake off all my cares,’ Anne wrote. ‘But I want to achieve more than that. I want to be useful and bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death.’

jmterrus@syr.edu

Published on April 6, 2009 at 12:00 pm