Anne Frank is alive, even after her death

A teenager coming into her own is "The Diary of Anne Frank" in its most basic form. The teenager is Anne Frank and the play is based on her diary written during World War II. It chronicles a two-year period in her life and the lives of seven other Jewish people, while they hid from the Nazis in the attic of an office building in Amsterdam, Holland.

The main characters are made up of two families (the Franks and the Van Daans), a single man (Mr. Dussel), and the people that assisted them while they were in hiding. Each character contributes to the conflicts and the tensions that occur from living in such a confined space, in constant fear without life's most basic necessities.

Director Meredith McDonough, with the help of a skilled cast, has brought Anne Frank's story into a new light. Each character's personality comes through thanks to the capable and accomplished portrayal by each of the actors.

A major attribute of the cast of "The Diary of Anne Frank" is its ability to make you feel the characters' emotions. You experience the tension of living with the same people, the desperation of waiting for the war to end, and the constant fear of betrayal and discovery. Your empathy brings you into the characters struggle to continue on with their daily lives in a situation fraught with danger.

As the play begins, Anne Frank, thirteen years old and full of delight, enters her home for the next two years. During the course of the play, Sara Kapner (who plays Anne) manages to take her from a child to a young woman full of thoughts and feelings beyond her age. She also fills excerpts from Anne's diary (read throughout the play) with a life and a spirit of their own. The emotional growth of Anne is done exceptionally well and Sara Kapner's performance is on target. I'd describe her as being the life of the play (she is, after all, Anne Frank).

Anne's family is with her in the annex. Edith Frank (Dori Legg) does well in her role of the caring mother constantly thrown aside by her daughter. Margot Frank (Anne's older sister depicted by Nikki Coble) has a subtle performance compared to Anne's, but is just as strong an actress. Otto Frank (played by Joel Leffert) allows you to experience the enormous weight he is carrying and the protectiveness he feels for his family.

The Van Daans are the family joining the Franks in hiding. Mr. Van Daan is selfish (caught stealing food in one instance) and Mrs. Van Daan is incredibly materialistic (valuing highly her fur coat for most of the play). Their son Peter (sixteen years-old at the beginning) is shy and this puts off Anne at first but their dislike for one another soon turns into love.  Finally, there is Mr. Dussel, a dentist, who joins their group later on. He is insensitive towards Anne and thinks her to be quite childish.

The play is a coming-of-age story, a love story, and a thriller all rolled into one. "The Dairy of Anne Frank" has it all without even meaning to.

After we get a feel for each character, we immediately see several conflicts beginning to occur. Anne has a tumultuous relationship with her mother (though is very close with her father), feels inferior to her sister Margot, finds the Van Daans rather selfish and boring, and their son Peter awkward and shy. These growing conflicts shape the events of the rest of the story and change as time passes for the characters.

The newly adapted version by Wendy Kesselman brings "The Diary of Anne Frank" into relevance for today's society. Anne's relationship with her mother is like any other teenage girl's relationship with her own mother. Each cast member lets you feel the same emotion that they're portraying in the characters. They have you rooting for them from the beginning. You don't want them to be found and you want them to survive the war. Even at times when they may annoy you (Anne's spunkiness gets old after a while, the Van Daans are self-centered) you only wish good things for the characters. When Anne reads parts of her diary (almost like a narrator) you get a glimpse of the depth of her character and the maturity she has learned from living in the environment that she does. Anne still managed to see the good in people even when it seemed her entire world was falling apart.

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