By Robert Bethune
"The Diary of Anne Frank," now in production at Jewish Ensemble Theatre, presents an unusual theatrical challenge. The heart of the play is a conflict, but we find it in an unusual place. It is not a conflict between people, though certainly there are moments of intense conflict between the characters. It is not a battle within one person, though we become intimately familiar with the inner life of the title character. Nor is it a battle between man and nature; indeed, one of the cruelest deprivations in the story is the loss of contact with the natural world.
No, the conflict is even subtler than any of these: It is the conflict between a group of people and the terrible situation they find themselves trapped inside.
To be sure, that situation is the creation of other people; one must remember, painful though it is to contemplate, that the Nazis and their collaborators were human beings, human being shockingly like ourselves. But the trap they are in is so enormous, and the mere life of a small group of terribly frightened, terribly desperate people so small in comparison, that the conflict becomes a lonely battle against a pervasive, omnipotent evil that cannot be heard or seen or touched, only felt – and felt most powerfully within oneself.
That is the challenge, and it is well met by director Evelyn Orbach and her cast.
Her Anne, Anne Marie Damman, is touchingly believable as the flighty early teen. Andrew Huff's Otto Frank, Anne's father, shows a gentle toughness that gives the lie to the myth of the passive Jewish victim, and is particularly powerful in the show's final moments.
The moment that hit me the hardest was between Trudy Mason's Mrs. VanDaan and Clement Valentine's Mr. VanDaan, when the power of hunger breaks a man's spirit. The intimacy of the Aaron DeRoy makes the experience of the whole play, with its many intense moments, especially powerful.
REVIEW:
'The Diary of Anne Frank'
The Jewish Ensemble Theatre at Aaron DeRoy Theatre at the Jewish Community Center, 6600 W. Maple Rd., West Bloomfield. Wed., Thu., Sat. & Sun. through March 15. Tickets: $20. For information: 248-788-2900 or http://www.jettheatre.org
