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October 19, 2007

Segal Centre features 'Anne Frank"

By STEVEN HOWELL

MONTREAL -- It's a tale that must be told.

Still.

The Leanor and Alvin Segal Theatre of the Segal Centre opens its new season tonight with "The Diary of Anne Frank." The drama, adapted by Wendy Kesselman, is based on the 1955 original stage version by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett.

When asked about the challenges of presenting a play everyone knows, director Marcia Kash explained that some are not familiar with the true-life saga.

"You think everybody must know this story, but they don't," Kash says. "They know Jaws,' but they don't know this."

Kash, who previously directed the work, has seen firsthand people who don't know the tale of Anne Frank.

"I saw it with my own eyes. There are kids, people who do not know this story," she says. "I think it's important to keep telling the story because it humanizes what happened to the Jews and so many other people during the Holocaust."

The play is based on the journals of a Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II. The Frank family, along with others, spent 25 months hidden in a storage attic in the annex of rooms above the office of Otto Frank (the Frank family patriarch). All were betrayed to the Nazis, arrested and deported to concentration camps. Anne Frank died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen when she was 15 years old. The diary was saved by a family friend and has now been translated into 67 languages.

"I think it's very important that we keep telling the story to new generations," Kash says. "And it means a lot to me to be able to do that."

Kash, who began her career as an actor at the Royal Court Theatre in London, England, says the play is a much more modern version of the original, which was written by married playwrights Goodrich and Hackett, a well-known Hollywood writing team who also penned the first two "Thin Man" movies as well as the screen classic, "It's a Wonderful Life." "The Diary of Anne Frank" won them the 1956 Tony Award for Best Play.

How do you modernize a work like this?

"It's just in the way that it's presented," Kash says. "The older play is kind of long -- it's a play of its time, of the '50s. This moves quicker, cleaner. It's a more modern telling theatrically."

It's not just a Jewish story, she adds.

"It's a universal story. It's a timeless story."

She believes it's a tale to which all people can relate.

"Think about what you would do if you were in the situation of the family or even the helpers," Kash says. "This is a story about tolerance. It all stems from our intolerance and not viewing other people who are different from us as being human."

Kash says the only way to change this sentiment is one person at a time.

"We all have prejudice in us," she says. "We can't ignore that we have it, but we have to check it, and you have to correct yourself and check other people. This is what this play does so well. When the family gets carted off at the end and you wonder what happened to them, you're bereft. It's not about numbers -- 10 million people or 6 million people -- it's about people and the ones that you personally knew."

"The Diary of Anne Frank" continues until Nov. 4.

The Segal Centre for Performing Arts at the Saidye is at 5170 Cote St. Catherine Road. Take 15 North and continue over the Champlain Bridge. Take exit 66, Cote St. Luc/Queen Mary and continue on the Decarie Expressway service road for about five minutes. Turn right on Cote Ste. Catherine Road. The Segal Centre is two blocks on your right.

Tickets cost from $30 to $43 for adult admission, $28 to $39 for seniors, and $21 for students at all times. Performance times are Monday to Thursday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 8:30 p.m., and Sunday at 7 p.m. Wednesday and Sunday matinees are also available. Call the box office at (514) 739-7944 or visit www.segalcentre.org.

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