{"id":32682,"date":"2023-03-02T19:10:22","date_gmt":"2023-03-03T00:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=32682"},"modified":"2023-03-09T18:59:28","modified_gmt":"2023-03-09T23:59:28","slug":"anne-franks-diary-is-as-powerful-as-ever-for-director-oconnell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/anne-franks-diary-is-as-powerful-as-ever-for-director-oconnell\/","title":{"rendered":"Anne Frank\u2019s diary is as powerful as ever for director O\u2019Connell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For more than 70 years, the very private thoughts of Anne Frank, as she recorded them in hiding during the Second World War, have been arguably the most powerful accounts of the realities of the Holocaust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generations have been moved by her words, sparking numerous adaptations, including the award-winning play, The Diary of Anne Frank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, as Theatre Aurora prepares to open the play this week, director Keith O\u2019Connell says her words are as important now as ever before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAny time this story can be presented, it needs to be told,\u201d says O\u2019Connell. \u201cHistory is beginning to repeat itself, sadly, in many aspects around the world. We\u2019re living in a time of war right now. Even though it\u2019s not touching us here in Canada, we still see horrific events happening \u2013 vandalism and all those sorts of things that are happening at religious venues\u2026 history is starting to repeat itself and this story needs to be told as many times as humanly possible so people don\u2019t forget. If we either don\u2019t continue to tell this story or pretend that it doesn\u2019t exist, it could get worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it is very timely to present it again and remind people of the struggles of the past and how we can draw parallel lines to what we\u2019re seeing today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since it was first published in English from its native Dutch in 1952, Anne Frank\u2019s diary has sparked countless adaptations and interpretations, including the 1955 Tony Award-winning play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, and the 1959 Oscar-winning film, based on the play, starring Millie Perkins and Shelley Winters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Connell says he\u2019s a big fan of the film, particularly Shelley Winters\u2019 performance, and was struck how as much as there are moments of tension in the play, they are met with \u201ca sense of family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s what drew me to this,\u201d he says. \u201cGiven everything they have been going through, everything that has been taken away from them, they are still in some aspects able to thrive in a small confined space. It\u2019s impossible to recreate the exact space that Anne Frank and the families were forced to live in for those 761 days; what we were able to recreate is the feeling of having a confined space and to be able to see these individuals, how they adapted, how they were able to strengthen their bond as families within the confines of that space. They had a rhythm of life that was evident from the first day they were brought into until hiding until the very last day\u2026 that that is what we\u2019re really focusing on: this rhythm of life and what they had to endure for those 761 days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of his approach in casting the play and having his actors build their characters is the simple reminder that these were real people and not just characters of the writers\u2019 imaginations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEach one has their own journey they have taken for their roles,\u201d O\u2019Connell explains. \u201cEveryone is concerned with representing these people truthfully and right down to how they use a prop, how they walk, how they talk. We\u2019re not speaking German or Hebrew throughout the play, but each one of these individuals has committed themselves in ways I have never seen other shows I have done. We want to make sure that we are bringing truth to the story, that we are true to these individuals and we\u2019re presenting them with respect. That\u2019s the number one word I can probably say \u2013 we\u2019re trying to ensure the audience walks away with respect for these people and the journey they went through.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theatre Aurora\u2019s production of The Diary of Anne Frank opens this Thursday, March 2, and runs on select dates and times through March 11. For more information, visit theatreaurora.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For more than 70 years, the very private thoughts of Anne Frank, as she recorded them in hiding during the Second World War, have been arguably the most powerful accounts of the realities of the Holocaust. Generations have been moved by her words, sparking numerous adaptations, including the award-winning play, The Diary of Anne Frank. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/2023-03-02-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8v8","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 14:34:41","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}