A ‘what if she lived?’ reimagining of the life of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank, Anne Being Frank has her surviving the horrors of the death camp and emerging post war in New York City to publish her revised account of the war.
Anne Being Frank: quick links
Anne being Frank: from the pen of Australian playwright Ron Elisha
This one-person show starring Alexis Fishman in the titular role plus others, is from the pen of Australian playwright Ron Elisha under the direction of New Yorker Amanda Brooke Lerner.
Brooke Lerner also directed Fishman in the 2023 New York run of the play.
Anne being Frank: imagining her life as a writer after the war
Told in three acts, we follow Frank’s early years in Amsterdam, including the two years she and her family spent hiding from the Nazis, to the concentration camp where she continues her diary entries while finding solace in her imagining her life as a writer after the war.
This bold take on a life that we think we know so well takes a comic/tragic turn once inside the camp, where her emerging sexuality and relationship with a young camp thug called ‘Pimples’, results in an abortion.
Throughout the horrors of the camp, Frank continues to immerse herself in writing in her diary, which she imagines will be published after the war.
Flash forward to NYC and Frank is confronting her editor ‘Bow Tie’ who wants her to remove the more horrific elements of her story.
Fishman expertly represents the character with just a cigar and a large red pencil, while she refrains ‘I still believe that people are really good at heart’.
The stage is simply set with three areas representing her hiding place lined with many books, the publisher’s desk and in centre stage, a bare wooden bench set in the concentration camp.
Anne being Frank: rapid jumps in time and place
Elisha’s dense text at times presents a challenge for Fishman to deliver and the rapid jumps in time and place can be difficult to follow, even as Frank clearly calls out each year as the play progresses.
What Elisha has given us is something that is thought-provoking and as universal on the horrors and futility of war as Frank’s original work, which was published by her father Otto in 1947.
The script also provides a great platform for Fishman’s performance, which is both extremely physical and cerebral, as she darts through time frames and characters.
Throughout the play’s 90 minutes Fishman never loses Frank’s inner voice and is captivating and engaging throughout, leaving us with a much more complex view of Anne Frank.
Brooke Lerner’s direction is tight while allowing Fishman’s artistry to shine.
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What we are left with is the question of what a life could have been if it were not for war, and this is still a question that we are reminded of daily.
Anne Being Frank will be performed at the Sydney Opera House until 21 September 2025.
