By Paul Horsley

One of the reasons that millions of readers over the years have been drawn to Anne Frank’s indelible diary is that it permits us a personal and profoundly human way of thinking about the unthinkable. Discussing the Holocaust is always a challenge but Anne’s diary, first published in 1947 and more recently disseminated in a more complete version, permits us see Nazism from the standpoint of an ordinary family, one that could easily be ours: It personalizes an experience that many of us find hard to grasp.

This gripping and at times witty memoir, which chronicles the Frank family’s years of hiding in the back of an Amsterdam house, permits us a glimpse of what life was like, at least for one Jewish family fleeing intolerance. And because it contains all of the grit and poignancy of a good family drama, as told by a teenage girl coming of age, the story has found its way to the stage and to film.

While many have found that reading The Diary of a Young Girl (which has been translated into 67 languages) is a deeply intimate experience, there are strong arguments for placing its drama in a public place where it can be experienced communally, so that its issues can be confronted in a way that both educates and acknowledges that this can happen here. From January 29th through February 21st the Kansas City Repertory Theatre brings The Diary of Anne Frank to the Spencer Theatre stage, in Wendy Kesselman’s adaptation of Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1955 play.

“It goes to the core of what theater does,” said Marissa Wolf, the Rep’s Director of New Works/Artistic Associate since December 2014, who directs the play. “Which is that it draws us close, and we breathe and sweat and cry and laugh together in a space shared by the actors, by the storytellers. The audience becomes an agent in the storytelling, and we sort of live together the pain of this history.” Many Holocaust survivors and their families have discovered the importance of verbalizing the horrors toward coming to terms with them.

“The material is hard, it’s hard to let it in,” Marissa said. “This creates a space in which we have agreed to come together, sit together: a safe space.” Kesselman’s Tony-nominated version brings Anne’s voice to the fore, even more than in the more rosy-hued 1955 version, and we get a sense of the threat broiling just outside the Franks’ “secret annex.” “I love this adaptation,” Marissa said. “It’s got a real pulse to it, and also the dark edges are allowed to seep in.”

The original stage version’s “neat” ending, deriving partly from Anne’s perhaps overly optimistic view of the world, has caused controversy over the years. After all no version of this diary can have a “happy ending,” Marissa said. “I think the trap is to sort of … neuter it, to allow the play to be this cozy story in which we end on Anne saying ‘I still believe that people are really good at heart.” And we all get to feel better about ourselves, as if humanity were not actually capable of such atrocities.”

The Kesselman adaptation is more grounded, she said, and “brings in a lot more of Anne’s voice. Right from the beginning we get a voice-over of Anne as they’re unpacking, with direct quotes from the diary. And then throughout the play we get these direct addresses from her, direct diary entries in which she talks about her interior life and her observations of the world around her.”

On one level Anne’s is a story of young love, and its recounting of her falling in love (and just as quickly out of love) with Peter Van Daan is both tender and heartbreaking. More important, the diaries chronicle Anne’s own view of herself as a literary figure: If only she had known how many people would end up reading her chatty prose! “She really had a vision of herself in the world,” Marissa said. “The diary’s such a beautiful examination of humanity. … You do feel that she’s writing for something bigger than herself. She was self-aware, and she was excited about becoming a writer.”

Indeed, when Anne heard on the radio that the Dutch government would be seeking to publish wartime memoirs once the hostilities were over, she went back and began editing what she’d written, trying to make the diary into something more “literary.”

Anne’s family would all perish in the Holocaust save Otto, her father, who survived and helped put together the diaries. He initially omitted material he deemed too personal, and Kesselman’s version acknowledges the inclusion of restored entries, as well as other pertinent material that has come to light since 1947. “As we grapple with the sort of quiet ups and downs and daily dramas inside the annex,” Marissa said, “I do think that the looming violence and horror right outside the window that’s pressing down on them is very important, and makes it actually a much richer and more interesting evening of theater.”

The ultimate goal is to “never forget,” Marissa said, and to use Anne’s story as a source of continually renewable resolve. “Because we do suffer from cultural amnesia, we absolutely do sort of continually ‘forget.’ So I think an essential part of staging this play is keeping it alive, keeping the memory of Anne present in our minds.”

The production stars Rachel Shapiro as Anne Frank, Daniel Beeman as Peter Van Daan, Lenny Wolpe as Otto Frank, Peggy Friesen as Edith Frank, Merle Moores as Mrs. Van Daan, Martin Buchanan as Mr. Dussel, Nicole Marie Green as Margo Frank, Victor Raider-Wexler as Mr. Van Daan, Shanna Jones as Miep and Andy Perkins as Mr. Kraler.

For tickets and information go to kcrep.org or call 816-235-2700.

Top: Rachel Shapiro. All photos courtesy of Kansas City Repertory Theatre.

To reach Paul send email to paul@kcindependent.com or find him on Facebook (paul.horsley.501) or Twitter (@phorsleycritic).