Salzburg State Theater shows “The Diary of Anne Frank”
“No one who doesn’t write knows how fine it is to write. With writing, everything dissolves, my sorrows disappear, courage is restored. But, and this is the big question, will I write something important… ? “, wrote 15-year-old Anne Frank on April 4, 1944 in her beloved diary “Kitty”. Significant and unfortunately still up to date, inspired by Anne’s work to this day for scenic and cinematic implementation worldwide. This is also the case at the Salzburg State Theater, where “The Diary of Anne Frank – A Monologue” in a production by Christina Piegger can be experienced in the Kammerspiele since February.
An intensive theatrical examination of past and present at the same time, which is not only to be recommended to the younger generation. Anne Frank (1929–1945) kept her diary from June 12, 1942 to August 1, 1944. Her father Otto Frank, who was the only one in his family to survive the war and the Holocaust, published Anne’s notes. Anne Frank died shortly before her 16th birthday and the liberation in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Yet somehow, it feels, this Jewish girl, who had to spend the last two years of her life in hiding in a “annex”, survived with her diary.
Lisa Fertner makes it easy for the audience to get to know the girl Anne: Arriving in the secret annex, she “reports” on the past and, in the course of the play, on the completely new life situation she has found herself in. She unpacks the backpack, which contained only a few belongings and memorabilia that she now wants to decorate her new home with. Sonja Böhm’s stage equipment conveys an authentic image – table, chair, a simple bookshelf, a chest and a “walk-in” closet.
In Fertner’s play it becomes clear how the character grows, how the pubescent girl becomes a young woman with dreams and ideals over the course of two years. Through a clever selection of concise text passages from Anne Frank’s shocking testimony, Christina Piegger managed to create the drama of the Jewish teenager: confinement – internally and spatially. Inevitable conflicts and arguments with family and roommates. Uncertainty and fear of death because of the constantly lurking danger of being discovered. A sometimes nerve-wracking, sometimes dull everyday life in hiding, from which she can at best escape “by writing”, the great longing for freedom unfolds expressively through staged text passages.
Despite inner contradictions, she does not lose hope, develops resilience and meets her fate with charming, subtle humor and irrepressible joie de vivre. A touching theatrical experience in a simply knitted but gripping implementation, which, sad but true, has become more topical in the last few days. On May 3, 1944, Anne wrote: “Why, what is the war for anyway? Why can’t people live in peace?”. It is overwhelming to realize that the world’s population has yet to come up with a satisfactory answer.
Kirsten BenekamCan be seen at the Landestheater Salzburg until April 21st. Tickets and info at www.salzburger-landestheater.at