"Anne Frank": Uplifting, harrowing story on stage at Intiman

Theater review

Watching the Frances Goodrich-Albert Hackett play "The Diary of Anne Frank," one could wish for a more realistic, complex drama about the persecution of Jews by the Nazis.

But it would be hard to find a better production of the imperfect "Diary of Anne Frank" than the one Intiman Theatre just unveiled.

In this nuanced mounting by longtime Minneapolis director Sari Ketter, the play sidesteps melodrama at nearly every opportunity.

Instead, it offers an engaging, aptly humorous and aptly tense portrait of people jammed together in captivity. And it provides some small sense of the utter insanity and tragic preposterousness of the systematic genocide the Nazis unleashed throughout Europe.

The lens through which the Holocaust is viewed here is, of course, the literary consciousness of the precocious Dutch Jewish adolescent, Anne Frank.

Anne's vivid diary of the two years her family and others spent hiding in an Amsterdam attic to evade Nazi capture is surely the most-read first-hand account of its kind by a Holocaust victim.

Reading it is a rite of passage for many young people, who can see themselves in the shoes of a perceptive young writer with a keen eye and ear, and a philosopher's view of historical tragedy.

Any production of this 1955 Broadway play based on the diary must have a vital Anne at its center to succeed. This one is blessed with New York actress Lucy DeVito, a pint-size wonder who projects a dynamic personality and ravenous curiosity.

Initially, DeVito's performance is a bit overburdened with girlish, ants-in-her-pants mannerisms. But thanks to her crack comic timing, DeVito is the funniest Anne Frank in this critic's memory.

And she skillfully traces Anne's maturation and blossoming in a way that's palpable but not sappy. We see it in her shifting relationship to Peter (a compelling Connor Toms), a Jewish teen also trapped in this attic.

DeVito's Anne is the catalytic live wire in this forced, frightened community. The other actors work in a quieter vein, often revealing through a look, a gesture, a touch, who these people are — and how they're surviving a terrible dilemma.

As Anne's father, Otto Frank, the excellent Matthew Boston adds a sense of ambivalence and weariness that help humanize this idealized paternal role.

As Peter Van Daan's far less saintly parents, Michael Winters and Shellie Shulkin expose their foibles but avoid the trap of caricature. Alban Dennis, as a desperate Jewish dentist also in hiding, aims more at comic relief.

Particularly admirable are the dignity and silent distress brought to the thinner female roles: Anne's mother Edith Frank, played by the very affecting Amy Thone, and Anne's sister Margot, played by Lindsay Evans.

Also on target are Chris R. Walker's excellent sound design, and Nayna Ramey's rustic attic set.

Seen here in its original version (there was a later adaptation by Wendy Kesselman), this script is dated in a few respects; for instance, different information about who betrayed the Franks to the Nazis in 1944 has recently emerged. Also, Cynthia Ozick and other critics have rightly faulted the play for glossing over Anne's darker moods and concerns, as well as her literary sophistication. Anne did a complete rewrite of the diary, before the Nazis sent her and the others off to concentration camps — where all but Otto perished.

Reading the restored, complete diary, it is clear that Anne was hopeful about humanity but also cynical, very fearful and aware of what awaited her. But the play contrives a falsely upbeat ending by closing with a reiteration of her most optimistic statement: "I still believe in spite of everything that people are really good at heart."

Such solace is comforting perhaps, but too facile. Can we tell the truth to young people — that the Holocaust proved that all people are not good-hearted? That some are monstrous and must be fought?

Even in this admirable production of "The Diary of Anne Frank," that truth is missed.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com