The Diary of Anne Frank at the Algonquin Arts Theatre

Victoria L. Dammer
February 23, 2025
actors_playground, algonquinartstheatre, annefrank, annefrankhouse, annefrankhouse_official, holocaust, Openingnight.Reviews, theFrontRowNYC, victoriadammer, whowasshe

5/5 - (1 vote)

Presented at Algonquin Arts Theatre, The Diary of Anne Frank, is the hauntingly tragic story of a young girl’s life as a Jew hiding in Amsterdam during Nazi Germany’s invasion, told through her writings.

Historical Background

After coming to power, the Nazis forced Anne Frank, a teenage girl from Frankfurt, and her family to flee to Amsterdam. With the eventual occupation of the city, the family went into hiding along with several others in a tiny apartment above a warehouse.

Here’s a quick bio for those less familiar with the story of Anne Frank:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Anne Frank House (@annefrankhouse_official)

The 13-year-old wrote in several journals that revealed a teenage girl’s horrors, dismay, and everyday emotions as she was stuck in captivity.

Cast Performances

Lisa Catalfamo gave a superb performance as Frank, a spunky, inquisitive, intelligent young girl who observed her changing body and was aware of her sexuality. Like many teenagers, Frank struggled with her animosity toward her mother, Edith (Lauren Friedman). However, the special bond with her father, Otto (John C. Short), shone through the performances by both Catalfamo and Short.

Jennifer Shrestha delivered a very engaging performance as Mrs. Petronella Van Daan. She portrayed the anguish of giving up her most precious material gift, her fur coat, to provide for the basic care of those hiding in the apartment with her. Sacrificing for others is sometimes hard, even when it makes the difference between eating and starving. The audience sensed the pain Van Daan experienced during Shrestha’s rendition.

Production Elements

Theatergoers could hear a selection of Frank’s diary entries throughout the show, bringing the story to life that is often only read about.

In reviews, the special effects and sound design are often discussed when the action on stage is not as good as in this performance. In this case, search sirens and the sound of trains during Frank’s many nightmares added to the overall sense of fear and despair for the Frank family and the others in hiding. It was a bleak existence that ended with all being sent on a train transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.

The Legacy of Anne Frank

It’s certainly fitting that her father, the only survivor of his family who spent two years in what the younger Frank described as The Secret Annex, shared her words with the world to continue her memory. Frank had dreams like other teenagers; she wanted to be a journalist or a writer, not a woman with a dull stay-at-home life. Those dreams were cut short by Frank’s death a few months before the concentration camp where she was living, Bergen-Belsen, was liberated. One cannot help but wonder what this magnificent human may have done with her life had she lived. Anne Frank expressed she was grateful for the gift that God had given her “to express all that’s inside me.”

The tears and resounding applause in the theater confirmed the entire cast and crew expressed everything Frank wanted the world to know about her and her story.