On Stage
SHIPLEY, JOSEPH T.
On STAGE By Joseph T. Shipley A Young Girl's Faith in Life The Diary of Anne Frank. Dramatized from the book by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. Directed by Garson Kanin. Presented by Kermit...
...And Anne--whose diary we hear, then watch it come to life on the stage--manages to find more than moments of fun as she grows toward womanhood and looks forward to a rich and creative life...
...When food grows scarce, he slips down at night and tries to steal some of the community bread...
...She has flashes of insight, spurts of mischief, moments of fright...
...Van Daan can never reconcile herself to the privation...
...The Diary of Anne Frank is an exalting experience in the theater...
...There are few more touching moments in the contemporary theater than that which Susan Strasberg creates when, on Hanukah night as her father regrets that there are no presents, Anne pulls home-made presents for them all out of a bag...
...This lass of many sides and many moods Susan Strasberg brings not only to life but to tender nearness...
...She even becomes a moralist or mentor at times, lecturing Peter about his black moods, assuring him that most people are good or will be in a hundred years or so...
...He becomes more real by being less his daughter's dream-father...
...Her spells of hatred for her mother grow toward understanding...
...Even for Mr...
...Frank, whose quiet tone maintains the essential dignity of human nature, as Anne does its growth and goodness...
...Also on hand is the fussbudget old bachelor dentist Dussel, who has to share Anne's bedroom...
...And for the audience, moist eyes at a girl's warm heart...
...Anne annoys him endlessly...
...At the Cort Theater...
...It is a pearl of an episode, superbly set...
...More touchingly, she puts on gloves and scarf to walk across the common living room for an evening call on Peter...
...Dramatizing a diary seems a difficult task, nor does there seem much likelihood of theatrical entertainment in the story of two Jewish families living for two years in a cramped hideaway from Hitler, only to be found, borne off to concentration camps, and killed...
...The boy Peter is a sullen lad who but gradually softens under the gentle treatment of Mr...
...A perfect foil to young Susan Strasberg is Joseph Schildkraut as Mr...
...Van Daan: two cigarettes, made of scraps and pocket-scrapings...
...A community of diverse personalities, crowded into an attic, presenting a poignant segment of the human tragi-comedy, faulty enough to be close to us all but touched with that element still in us--despite the recent inroads of the beast--which lifts toward the divine...
...The other figures, less fortified, with lower melting points, are in the hands of competent players--Gusti Huber as Mrs...
...It shows us that, in spite of hardship and danger, life can be fun...
...Jack Gilford as Dussel--whom Garson Kanin has molded into a community...
...And Anne is an introvert, questioning, self-questioning, analyzing, asking her diary, her sister, her father, Peter about life...
...And under the strain they have their assorted breaks...
...Tempers flare, petty quarrels arise, cruel words are spoken...
...She has the high spirits of a child, but the constant company of the adults makes her understanding...
...Strangely, it is that confidence of Anne, even after she has gone to her death, which echoes from her diary to hearten the audience...
...Van Daan is a complainer, almost a whiner...
...As these folks must be quiet all day, because strangers are working in the offices below, the strain on them through over two years of such confinement may well be imagined...
...The authors have laid a great burden upon Susan Strasberg, who lives the role of Anne...
...It takes Anne a long time to appreciate her mother, but the audience feels Mrs...
...Anne is 13 when she first confides to her diary her impressions of the persons with whom she is to spend a cabin'd and confined two years...
...Yet somehow, in The Diary of Anne Frank, a happy combination of author, director and performer has resulted in an experience at once amusing, tender, touching and poignant, but not at all depressing--somehow entertaining and heartening, too...
...For the other family, the Van Daans, have been well-to-do and spoiled...
...Presented by Kermit Bloomgarden...
...Frank's struggle to hold the keel even, with a temperamental daughter and self-centered guests...
...For Anne is an extrovert, who must always be doing, doing--she walks behind Van Daan, mimicking his ways, or she slips into Peter's room to put on his clothing and come out before the family as a cocky boy...
...Yet, somehow they continue to live...
...but through the look we have at him as he first opens the diary (when all the others are dead) and at the end of the play closes it, we glimpse a measure of ineffectiveness in the man...
...Father Frank, seen through Anne's eyes, is thoughtful and understanding...
...And also that (as all rich tragedies show) life is worthwhile...
...Frank and the gathering interest of adolescent Anne...
Vol. 38 • October 1955 • No. 43
