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STUDY GUIDE
Study Guide prepared by Susan Speidel, Director of Education, and
Michael T. Mooney, Manager of Access and Outreach.
Funding for this program has been made possible through the generosity of
The Provident Bank Foundation, Fleet Bank, NA, Fred J. Brotherton Charitable Foundation,
Schering-Plough Corporation Foundation, SI Bank & Trust Foundation, C.R. Bard
Foundation, Inc., JP Morgan Chase & Co., Novartis Pharmaceutical Coporation, PSE&G,
Nordstrom, Target Stores, FirstEnergy Foundation.
Additional Funding for Paper Mill’s Education Programs is provided by
New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner Agency of the National
Endowment for the Arts and by funds from the National Endowment for the Arts,
The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, PNC Bank Foundation, Shirley Aidekman-Kaye, Kaela
O’Connor, and the Harold Wetterberg Foundation.
A SYNOPSIS OF THE PLAY
Wendy Kesselman has adapted The Diary of Anne Frank to include passages from Anne’s diary
that were published after the original play was written, as well as other survivor accounts. The
play opens with an image of the Frank family as they go into hiding entering the Secret Annex
through a door hidden behind a bookshelf. We see them begin to set up house and Mr. and Mrs.
van Daan and their son Peter arrive soon after. Mr. Frank along with the refugee families’ two
helpers, Miep and Mr. Kraler, who work in the offices below, explain the “rules” for living in the
annex stressing the importance of being quiet, moving around as little as possible during the day,
and not using the toilet until all the workers below have left for the day. Miep explains how she
will bring the families food, books and other supplies when she visits. As the families begin to
settle into a routine, Anne writes in her diary about taking lessons from her father, the arguments
between the van Daans, teasing Peter, and being upset by her mother’s urging her to behave in a
more adult manner. Miep and Mr. Kraler come bearing supplies and news of the outside world.
They also tell the families of Mr. Dussel, a friend who is in need of a place to hide, and make
plans for him to join them in the annex. Mr. Dussel arrives safely, but with more truthful news
of the situation “outside” than the families had received from Miep and Mr. Kraler. The families are terrified by how bad things have gotten and worry about friends not in hiding. They listen to BBC newscasts and hope for a British invasion. Anne begins to wake screaming in the
night from nightmares. Time passes and we see the families celebrate Hanukkah. Anne has gone
2005-2006 SEASON
to much trouble to make special presents for everyone in the annex, but their celebration is interrupted by sounds
from the offices below. Mr. Frank risks making a trip downstairs and concludes that a thief has been in the
offices. The possibility of the thief reporting what he heard from the annex leaves the occupants in fear. At the
beginning of Act Two a year has passed, food has become scarce, and it is clear everyone is suffering. Miep
brings a holiday cake to celebrate the new year, but the happy event is spoiled when Mr. van Daan forces his wife
to give up her precious fur coat for the money it will bring. Anne and Peter begin to have long conversations and
confide in each other. Anne writes in her diary that she is beginning to feel her body changing into that of a
woman. Mr. Kraler brings the distressing news that one of the employees downstairs has hinted that he remembers the existence of a door to an attic level and demands more pay. Mr. Frank encourages Mr. Kraler to give
him a raise in the hopes of keeping him from talking. As tensions run even higher in the annex, Mrs. Frank catches Mr. van Daan stealing bread in the night and demands he leave the annex. Mr. Frank persuades her to let him
stay. The families rejoice as they listen to the BBC newscast announcing the Allied invasion and their hopes are
high for an end to the war. As the families share a happy moment enjoying fresh strawberries we see Schutzstaffel
(SS) officers enter the office building below the annex and find the door behind the bookshelf. The families are
arrested and we hear of their fates in a voice over from Mr. Frank.
AN INTERVIEW WITH CAROLYN CANTOR AND DAVID KORINS
The Diary of Anne Frank Director Carolyn Cantor and Set Designer David Korins first met as young artists working at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and were married five years later. In 2001, they established Edge
Theater Company to further their artistic collaboration as well as foster a nurturing environment for young writers and new works. They balance their professional careers by producing at least one play a year at Edge and
freelancing the rest of the year.
What are some of the challenges and advantages to working with your spouse?
CAROLYN: One huge advantage is that our work is able to develop over a long period of gestation and hundreds
of conversations. We have the luxury of being able to share thoughts and ideas throughout the course of a day,
over dinner, while walking down the street, rather than having to reserve it for specific meetings. This allows us
to go through several incarnations of a design before settling on the final idea and to really talk through a play
in pretty minute detail. Of course, the main challenge is that sometimes it is hard to turn off. This becomes a
problem when one of us wants to talk about work and the other doesn’t.
DAVID: I think the main advantage to our collaboration is that we are never starting at the beginning; we are
always building on experiences that we have had both in and out of the theater. We have similar sensibilities,
likes and dislikes, and share many life experiences to draw from. Scheduling, something that is a very difficult
obstacle in the world of freelance artists, is obviously incredibly easy for us and, therefore, we start our discussions often months before a process would normally begin. This gives us time to let ideas breathe and evolve
before we re-visit them.
What are the challenges to working on a play in which audiences are familiar with the story?
CAROLYN: For me, the biggest challenge is to find a way to make the audience see the play with fresh eyes.
We all come to Anne Frank with a lot of pre-conceived notions about what it is. These ideas may stem from other
productions we’ve seen or from reading the diary as teenagers. Wendy Kesselman did an extraordinary job of
taking what was a somewhat dusty play and making it fresh and vital for a contemporary audience. I want our
production to surprise the audience from the first moment, to force them to listen and engage with the material
in a way that they might find unexpected. I think the fact that we know what happens at the end is irrelevant. It’s
like in Romeo and Juliet…we all know that they are both going to die but, when a production is really working,
we hope until the very end that the Friar will get there in time. I hope that our audience has a similar experience
watching this production.
DAVID: I like to think of all challenges as advantages. One advantage to the audience being familiar with the
story is that you don’t have to work as hard to tell it. It frees you up to think about how you want to engage with
the material because you know the narrative will come through. A disadvantage could be that the audience comes
in with certain expectations and if those are not met exactly as anticipated, they may not respond well. But hopefully our audience will be excited to see the story unfold in what might be a slightly different way than the one
they imagine.
Your research for this production included travel to Amsterdam. David, how has spending time in the actual attic
informed and affected your design?
DAVID: For years I had heard from people who had visited the Anne Frank House that they found the actual
annex was bigger then they thought it would be. So I went there expecting a large space when, in fact, the space
was much smaller than I had imagined. I was struck by architectural details, by the beams in the ceiling, by the
slope of the room, by the steepness of the staircases, by the simplicity of the space and also by how homey it
was. I measured the rooms myself and being someone who basically studies dimension all day long, I was
shocked that Anne’s room was 5 by 15 and two people lived in it. And the main room was 20 by 20. I think theatrically it may feel like a large space because people have this idea that they lived in a tiny attic but when you
think of a jail cell being 6 by 10, Anne’s room was not much bigger than that.
Carolyn, how did visiting the Frank Family’s hiding place inform your approach to directing their story?
CAROLYN: It is easy to find out what the actual annex looked like; there are dozens of books and websites where
that can be found. However, a photograph cannot tell you what the space feels like. Visiting the house in anticipation of this production was a deeply emotional experience. One of the things that struck me was that the space
was both overwhelmingly claustrophobic and very lonely. I wanted to capture both of those emotions with the
physical space. David and I came to feel that it was important that we see not just see the interior of the annex
but that it be somehow set in a world, and that we be aware that the residents are isolated within a larger context.
Also, visiting the Annex filled me with a profound sense of responsibility to bring this story to life in the most
vivid way possible. The feeling of standing in that space, knowing what transpired there and knowing that we
were about to embark on the journey of bringing this play to life was quite intense. I had been to the Anne Frank
house before about ten years ago but it really took on a different meaning for me being there in the context of
working on this play. I imagine many in our audience will be quite familiar with the story but some are, perhaps,
encountering it for the first time. I hope that for both we create a theatrical experience that will stay with them
for a long time to come.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
It is important that The Diary of Anne Frank be placed in proper historical context. Anne’s awareness of the
gassing of Jews in Poland and fear for Jews not lucky enough to be in hiding is clear in the play, but the reasons
her situation is so desperate is not explicitly explained. This is due, in part, to the Frank parents attempt to shield
their children from the persecution around them before they went into hiding. As a personal account, Anne’s
diary does not explain things she took for granted and the occupants only had BBC radio broadcasts and reports
from Miep and Mr. Kraler to inform them of outside events. If you cannot see the play while studying WWII,
below is a brief summary of some of the historical background including the persecution of Jews by the Nazi
Party.
ADOLPH HITLER & THE SEEDS OF WAR
After World War I, the Allied victors signed a series of peace treaties. The Treaty of Versailles demanded
Germany take responsibility for the First World War. Along with this admission of guilt, Germany also had to
severely reduce its military power and pay heavy reparations for loss of territory. During World War I, the
German government waged an extremely successful propaganda campaign, which led the public to believe they
were winning the war. Because of this, the German people were confused by the harsh terms of the Versailles
Peace Treaty. This gave rise to a theory that Germany had really won the war on the battlefield, but that traitors
within the country must have betrayed the Germans causing them to lose the war. Military leaders in Germany,
including Hitler, promoted this idea and pointed the finger at the new democratic Weimar Republic government,
Social Democrats, communists, and especially Jews as the traitors who had lost Germany the War. The stock market crash of 1929 and ensuing poor living conditions, along with continued outrage at the Treaty of Versailles led
to a highly nationalistic atmosphere in Germany in which the radical ideas of fascist parties seemed appealing to
many of the Germans. The German public elected Adolph Hitler and his Nationalist Socialist German Workers
Party (NSDAP) to power in 1933. Over the next few years, the NSDAP passed laws that slowly eroded the rights
of Jews and began propaganda campaigns promoting the idea that Jews were a threat to the good of the country.
In 1942, a Nazi conference settled on the “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Problem” and began a carefully strategic program to eliminate all Jews and other groups they considered “unworthy of life.” The Frank family fled to
the Netherlands as Nazi oppression in Germany got worse, but Hitler’s campaign to gain more territory led his
troops to the Netherlands in 1940. The Nazi occupation of The Netherlands led to the erosion of rights and extermination of Dutch Jews just as in Germany. When Margot Frank got a “call up” to report to a work camp, the
Frank family went into hiding. Adolph Hitler was a charismatic demagogue who rose to power at a time of social,
political and economic upheaval in Europe. He was an emotional speaker who combined a forceful oratorical
style with propaganda to spread his view that Germans were racially superior to all others. Under his influence,
the German Workers’ Party changed its name to the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, or Nazi Party, and
the red flag with a swastika was adopted as the party symbol. After a failed attempt to gain power by force in
1923, Hitler was arrested and jailed, during which time he wrote “Mein Kampf” (“My Struggle”), which became
the standard for Nazi racist and anti-Semitic ideology. Upon release from prison, he ran for President but lost to
Paul von Hindenburg. He was appointed Chancellor, in a political deal, and eventually succeeded Hindenburg
in 1934. Hitler named himself “Fuhrer” and by 1939, he had annexed Austria and invaded Poland as the first
steps in his plan for world domination. France and England declared war in return, but most of Western Europe
fell to the German war machine. Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and the United States entered the war
in the same year. By 1944, the Allied Forces reclaimed occupied Europe, German cities had been destroyed by
bombs, and Italy, Hitler’s only major ally, had fallen. Although attempts were made on Hitler’s life during the
war, none was successful and he killed himself on April 30, 1945. His Third Reich, which he predicted would
last 1,000 years, lasted for only 12 and he died a broken and defeated man. Adolph Hitler ordered the systematic expropriation to remove anyone who was considered less than “pure” or “undesirable.” Jews experienced
widespread discrimination under Hitler’s decrees that barred them from owning businesses or practicing law or
medicine and required all Jews to carry identification cards and wear yellow Stars of David on their clothing.
The terrorism reached a turning point on November 9, 1938, the night known as Kristallnacht. During this organized pogrom, over 190 synagogues were set on fire and 76 were burned to the ground. In the ensuing weeks,
Jewish children were expelled from school and as many as 3,000 Jews were rounded up and sent to ghettos which
had been created under the smokescreen of the German war effort and which sealed the fate of millions of
European Jews. Hitler’s “Final Solution” called for all Jews to be deported to these sealed ghettos as holding
areas. Many were then shipped in cattle cars to labor camps where they lived under brutally inhuman conditions.
Scores of doctors, some members of the Nazi party and others with no political affiliation, participated in sterilization and euthanasia efforts despite their Hippocratic Oaths. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were sent directly to the gas chambers in death camps. By the end of the war, more than 6 million Jews had been killed, along
with another five million gypsies, homosexuals and other individuals who were labeled “undesirable” due to illness, mental and physical birth defects or ideological opposition to the Nazi movement.
OTHER FAMOUS DIARISTS
Throughout history, diaries and journals were commonly used by explorers to provide an account of their journeys to their benefactors and to document important discoveries and locations. In the 189h and 19th centuries,
diaries became popular as a form of literature, giving insight into the human experience through introspection,
reflection and documentation.
 Samuel Pepys (pronounced peeps) (1633-1703) Detailed and intimate, Pepys’ diaries became a mainstay of British literature after their first publication in 1825.
From 1660-1669, Pepys kept an extraordinary diary, with running commentary on his daily rounds, his meals,
his health, even his relations with his wife. Pepys never intended the diaries for publication, and he wrote them
in unusual shorthand that kept them from being read for many years. When the diaries were published in 1825,
they were hailed as an intimate glimpse at life in the Restoration-era England. Particularly famous are his firsthand accounts of the coronation of King Charles II and the Great Fire of London. He often closed his entries
with “…and so to bed.”
 Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) - Franklin once wrote, “If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are
dead & rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.” Benjamin Franklin was a writer,
printer, statesman, and inventor. He is known as the writer of “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin,” but
he wrote letters, journals, essays, books, newspaper articles, ballads, and almanacs. Franklin also founded what
is considered the first public library. He wrote two notable journals, one on a journey from London to
Philadelphia and the other from Paris, 1776 to 1785.
 George Washington (1732-1799) - The first American President kept extensive journals from 1748 until his
death. These are not literary journals in the conventional sense, but – as Washington put it - “Where and How
my Time is Spent.” His diaries fill six volumes and provide an intimate look at the founding father and his experiences. That his diaries were important to him there is no doubt. When in the spring of 1787 he journeyed to
the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and discovered that he would be away from Mount Vernon many
weeks, he wrote home for the diary he had accidentally left behind. “It will be found, I presume, on my writing
table,” he said. “Put it under a good strong paper cover, sealed up as a letter”
MODERN DAY DIARIES
Real life and fictional diaries have been made into films such as “The Princess Diaries”, “Dances With Wolves,”
“Bridget Jones’ Diary” and “Memoirs of a Geisha”. TV’s “Doogie Howser” ended each episode with the young
doctor’s entries into his computer diary. Today, the modern equivalent to the diary is the internet ‘blog’ – a word
that originated as two words: ‘web log’. Entire websites are now devoted to ‘blogging’. Like many actors,
Michael Rupert, who is playing the role of Mr. Dussell, in Paper Mill’s production of THE DIARY OF ANNE
FRANK, is keeping a journal on his rehearsal and performance process. However, unlike the other diarists mentioned here, his thoughts and comments are being shared immediately through an on-line blog. An excerpt from
that blog follows:
Wednesday, January 04, 2006 –
First Stumble-Through for ANNE FRANK...
Rehearsals are going well for THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK. Today was the first stumble-through in the studio, and though everyone was trying desperately to remember their lines and figure out where they’re supposed
to go next, Carolyn (the director) seemed very pleased. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but it looks to be
a terrific production. Here’s a sneak peek at the costume designs for “Mr. Dussell”.
THE POWER OF WRITING
For Anne, her diary was a way for her to pass the long hours of necessary silence, a way to escape, and a muchneeded friend and confidant when she had none because of her imprisonment, but there is much to be learned
from Anne’s account of life in the secret annex.
ACTIVITY: Keep a journal for at least a week then go back and examine it as though you were examining a historical document.
How much can be learned from the journal entries about current affairs and what the culture we live in is
like?
Imagine trying to form an idea of what it was like to be a young person in your situation and time. What ideas
might an historian get that would be right from their journal entries? Might a historian get the wrong idea about
some things?
How did it feel to keep the journal? Did you struggle to find things to write about? Did you feel it was a place
you could express ideas you might not be able to work out in conversation?
Anne’s journal has much to tell us about the historical era in which she lived, but more importantly, it is a very
personal account of her coming of age. Anne uses the diary to work out questions she has about her personal identity. How does Anne define herself in the diary or the play?
ACTIVITY: Make a list of some of the identities we see Anne struggle with including her identity as a daughter
and her religious identity as a Jew.
How did Anne use her diary to work out her personal struggles? How did you see these issues manifest themselves in her behavior?
In the play, we hear a radio broadcast in which the exiled Princess of the Netherlands appeals to the people about
the importance of everyday writings from people who are being oppressed. Anne began revising her diary after
hearing the broadcast. The Nazi’s Final Solution aimed not only to eliminate all Jews, but also to eliminate all
traces that they ever existed including all records of the Solution itself. Anne’s writing in her diary, with the idea
others might some day read it, was an act in direct opposition to the Nazi regime. Just by continuing to write,
Anne Frank fought the Nazis.
WHY SEE THE PLAY?
If you have already studied or will study Anne’s diary, why it is useful to experience the same story in different mediums?
If you have seen the movie, read the diary or even read the play, how was watching the story on stage different?
What is it about a live theater experience that makes it different from other forms in which you may have
been exposed to The Diary of Anne Frank?
Were the emotions triggered by the play the same as ones experienced while watching the movie or reading
the diary itself?
Did different events or ideas stand out in the different versions of the story?
ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
What was Anne’s initial reaction to the family’s arrival at the secret annex? How was it different from
Margot and her mother’s reaction?
How did Anne’s outlook on living in the annex change during the course of the play? What do you think
brought about those changes?
For what reasons do you think Anne kept a diary while she was in hiding? How do you think her diary
helped Anne through this difficult time?
How is what Anne writes about herself in her diary different from the way she acts around the other
occupants of the annex? Why do you think Anne hides some of her true feelings from the others?
Can you think of a time when you have had to keep the way you were feeling to yourself? How did it
make you feel?
What visual image do you remember most from the play? Why do you think that image was so powerful?
How did it make you feel?
Read excerpts from ZLATA’S DIARY, the journal of a young girl living in war-torn Sarajevo, Yugoslavia
between September 1991 and October 1993. (published by Penguin Classics, February 1, 1995). How
does it compare to Anne’s diary?
If you had to live in hiding, and could not make a sound from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. everyday (except
Sunday), and had no television, computers or electronic toys to entertain yourself, what would you do?
Make up a daily schedule of you you might spend one of your days.
VOCABULARY
SS: Short for schutzstaffel (protective squadron), The SS was a highly trained elite paramilitary organization
that worked in conjunction with the Nazi military forces. They ran the labor and death camps.
Westerbork transit camp: A temporary or transient camp for Dutch Jews in Holland. From Westerbork,
prisoners were transported to the death camps in Poland.
Call up: A government order to report to the military, usually to be sent to a labor camp
Pim: Anne’s name for her father
W.C.: Stands for Water Closet, a room with a toilet
Beethoven-straat: A street in Amsterdam where many Jews lived and were arrested in one night
The Vichy Regime: The French “puppet” government that operated under Nazi occupation
Guilders: Dutch currency
Westertoren: A church with a carillon bell tower near the secret annex
ON-LINE RESOURCES
The Anne Frank Internet Guide: www.annefrank.com
The Nizkor Project: www.nizkor.org
The Holocaust Chronicle: www.holocaustchronicle.org,
On propaganda: www.propagandacritic.com
Ann Frank’s Tales from The Secret Annex by Anne Frank tr. by Michael Mok and Ralph Manheim,
Doubleday, 1983
The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank by Willy Lindwer, tr. by Alison Meersschaert, Pantheon, 1999
Anne Frank: A Hidden Life by Mirjam Pressler, Puffin, 2000
Teaching the Representation of the Holocaust, Ed. by: Marianne Hirsch and Irene Kacandes, Modern
Language Association of America, 2004
A Scholarly Look at ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’, Ed. by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House Publishers, 1999
Memories of Anne Frank: Reflections of a Childhood Friend by Alison Gold, Scholastic, 1999.