Language:
English
Year of publication:
1998
Titel der Quelle:
Commentary
Angaben zur Quelle:
105,3 (1998) 58-63
Keywords:
Frank, Anne,
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), and the theater
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Personal narratives
Abstract:
The new Broadway production of "The Diary of Anne Frank", adapted by Wendy Kesselman from the 1955 play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, adds elements from the original diary which emphasize Anne's Jewishness. Kesselman replaced the play's original upbeat ending with a vivid description of how Anne suffered and died at Bergen-Belsen. Despite the changes, Kesselman's "Diary" remains a sentimental play about a luminous, flirtatious, idealistic Anne that won the praise of critics forty years ago. Absent is Anne's "darkness", intellectual precocity, inquisitiveness and complexity, and the extent of her Jewish consciousness is underdeveloped. The reason is not that the original 1952 version of the "Diary" (edited by Anne's father Otto Frank) or the recently published complete version of the "Diary" do not present these sides of Anne. Rather, the fault lies with the original and the more recent Broadway producers who ignored them.
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