PREVIEW: Diary of Anne Frank
Connor Toms & Lucy DeVito star in The Diary of Anne Frank.Intiman Theatre launches its season with the original Pulitzer Prize-winning 1956 stage adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary: a haunting and luminous personal account of life during the Holocaust. Through the lens of her own eyes and words, The Diary of Anne Frank tells the story of the 25 months she, her family and four others spent in hiding during World War II.
Dear Diary, since you and I are going to be great friends, I will start by telling you about myself.
My name is Anne Frank.
Lucy DeVito stars as Anne Frank. DeVito is the daughter of Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman and has appeared in several movies including the upcoming movie “A Quiet Little Marriage.”
In 1997, The Advocate reported about passages that has been edited out by Anne Frank herself from the original diary, but her father Otto Frank later restored, including the following:
“Wednesday, January 5,1944… Once when I was spending the night at Jacque’s, I could no longer restrain my curiosity about her body, which she’d always hidden from me and which I’d never seen. I asked her whether, as proof of our friendship, we could touch each other’s breasts. Jacque refused. I also had a terrible desire to kiss her, which I did. Every time I see a female nude, such as the Venus in my art history book, I go into ecstasy. Sometimes I find them so exquisite I have to struggle to hold back my tears. If only I had a girlfriend!
Dineke Stam, an out lesbian who has worked at the Anne Frank House, referring to the passage, was quoted as saying:
Whatever Anne would have eventually done will never be known. She couldn’t finish her work because she was arrested. She was a German Jewish girl hiding in Amsterdam. In the end she was killed simply because she was Jewish. It’s so important to keep her in her historical context.
The Diary of Anne Frank at the Intiman Theatre begins with previews on Friday March 21, with the official opening on March 26, and closing May 17, 2008. You can purchase tickets online, by calling 206 269-1900, or at the Box Office.
