WENDY Kesselman has adapted Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett’s 1955 stage version of this document of the Shoah, and director Lorraine Biddlecombe and a fine cast (with many débuting) portray the last two years of Anne Frank’s life with great sincerity.
April Napper’s Anne enters the Annex as a chirpy, chipper, sometimes noisy 13-year-old, determined to treat life, even her family's attempt to escape the Nazis, as an adventure.
But we soon get a sense of her mind maturing, in her dialogues with her father Otto (Geoff Dodsworth) and friendship with Peter (Simon Crispin). On his début, as is Napper, Crispin is very skilful and engaging, clumsily teasing Anne with a delicate hint of shyness.
This production reveals the plight of an oppressed minority, and the set (designed by the director and Adam Taussik) gives a sense of the period and the limited space the characters must share.
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