Anne Frank is every bit as sassy and strong willed as my image of her

REVIEW: The Diary of Anne Frank

The Frank Family – Lucy DeVito, on table, as Anne Frank with
(from left to right) Amy Thone as Mrs. Frank, Matthew Boston as
Mr. Frank and Lindsay Evans as Margot Frank. Photo: Chris Bennion

The Diary of Anne Frank is a haunting and timeless story of a teenager’s unrelenting courage and optimism. Forced into hiding during the Holocaust, the German-Jewish teenager Anne Frank, her family and four others spent 25 months during World War II living secretly in an annex of rooms above her father’s office in Amsterdam.

This production stars Lucy DeVito in the title role. I don’t think I have ever seen a 25-year-old actress pass so convincingly as a pubescent 13-year-old girl. DeVito captures the familiar awkwardness along with the emotional and physical struggles of growing up. She allows us to delve into the character and represents a persona of determined optimism and stubbornness that was Anne Frank; an adolescent so eerily similar to a child today.

Lucy DeVito as Anne Frank – Lucy DeVito stars as Anne Frank in Intiman
Theatre’s production of The Diary of Anne Frank. Photo: Chris Bennion

Lucy DeVito’s parents, Hollywood actors Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, along with other members of her family, were in attendance for opening night, entering through the front door and sitting mild-mannered within the audience. For on this night, it was their daughter Lucy that was in the spotlight.

But in all honesty the other performers do as good or better job with their parts as DeVito, most notably Otto Frank (played by Matthew Boston) and the limited role of Mr. Kraler played by Jim Gall. The Van Daan’s (Michael Winters and Shellie Shulkin) also add a lot of character to the performance.

The stage set, that shows us their Secret Annex, exposes the tight and difficult living conditions that they had to endure for over two years while many of their neighbors and friends on the outside were, unbeknown to them, being sent to death camps. The terrible fate and fear of being Jewish during this era has to put into relative perspective the conditions that minorities face today.

Just before the end to their two years of being confined and hiding in the Secret Annex, Anne Frank naively compares the evil that exists in the world, as if the world were just “going through a phase”, to what she experienced as an adolescent in her tumultuous relationship with her mother, that she eventually grew out of.

I think the world may be going through a phase, the way I was with Mother. It’ll pass, maybe not for hundreds of years, but some day…I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are really good at heart.

Anne seems confident that the World would also grow up and be a happy place again for her and everyone else.
And she was partially right.

Anne Frank Ensemble – Lucy DeVito, in foreground, with the
company of The Diary of Anne Frank at Intiman Theatre.
Photo: Chris Bennion.

The Diary of Anne Frank runs through May 17 at Intiman Theatre. Tickets range from $10 (for 25 and younger) to $50 and can be purchased at Intiman.org.

How wonderful it is that no one has to wait, but can start right now to gradually change the world! How wonderful it is that everyone, great and small, can immediately help bring about justice by giving of themselves!

~ Anne Frank, 26 March, 1944