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Harsh history

From left, standing, Michael Nelson plays Otto Frank, Alyssa Calder as Margot Frank, Denise Utter as Edith Frank, Jean Hardie as Mrs. Van Daan, Robert Wamsley as Mr. Hermann Van Daan, David Hardie as Peter Van Daan, Chris Le Blanc as Mr. Dussell and Jessi Little as Anne Frank (sitting) star in the Spokane Civic Theatre's,
By Jim Kershner jimkershner@comcast.net
From left, standing, Michael Nelson plays Otto Frank, Alyssa Calder as Margot Frank, Denise Utter as Edith Frank, Jean Hardie as Mrs. Van Daan, Robert Wamsley as Mr. Hermann Van Daan, David Hardie as Peter Van Daan, Chris Le Blanc as Mr. Dussell and Jessi Little as Anne Frank (sitting) star in the Spokane Civic Theatre's,

Everybody is familiar with “The Diary of Anne Frank” – but not everyone is familiar with this version.

The Spokane Civic Theatre’s production of this show, which opens Friday, is from the 1997 adaptation by Wendy Kesselman.

This is a nonsugar-coated version.

“It plugs in a lot of things – about her growing up and being a young girl, about her relationship with her mother, which was tempestuous, and about her feelings about being Jewish,” said Marianne McLaughlin, who is directing the show. “It’s a grittier version.”

This new adaptation stems from the unexpurgated versions of Anne’s original diaries, which were released only after her father Otto’s death in 1980. Kesselman took the original 1955 Pulitzer-winning play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett and added some of the darker material from the diaries.

“Anne’s last lines now are far darker, and the play ends with the focus on Otto Frank, the bereft survivor of the camps, as he graphically describes what eventually happened to each of the other members of his household,” wrote Vincent Canby in a review of the 1997 New York production.

This new adaptation debuted on Broadway in 1997 with a 16-year-old Natalie Portman in the lead role. Ben Brantley of The New York Times said the play had an “uncompromising steadiness of gaze, embedded in a bleak historical context.”

“(The play) offers no treacly consolations about the triumph of the spirit,” wrote Brantley. “Indeed, the effect is more like watching a vibrant, exquisite fawn seen through the lens of a hunter’s rifle.”

“I do think this makes for a better play, because the characters are real people,” said McLaughlin. “She was a chatterbox and a pain in the neck, but an amazing individual.”

Yet the core of the original 1955 play remains intact. It remains a straightforward attempt to dramatize Anne’s life as she and her family hid from the Nazis in an Amsterdam attic. Much of it is taken directly from her own words.

Jessi Little, 13, of Hayden Lake, Idaho, plays Anne in this production. McLaughlin said she wanted to find someone as close to Anne’s age as possible, and in Little she found a young actress with the maturity to handle such a big and nuanced role.

Michael Nelson plays Otto. The rest of the cast includes Denise Sutton-Utter, Alyssa Calder, Dana Blasingame, David Hardie, Paul Huck, Jean Hardie, Robert Wamsley, Chris LeBlanc, Stan Calder and Maxwell Nightser.