The Diary of Anne Frank at Steppenwolf
I went to Chicago this weekend to see Tina Landau's The Diary of Anne Frank at Steppenwolf. Steppenwolf is my favorite theatre company and what I would like to loosely model the Necessary Theatre from. Tina is my favorite director and her shows have consistently made it into my top ten list of Best Theatre. The Diary of Anne Frank is particularly poignant for me having directed a version myself and engrossing myself in the history and horror of the holocaust. So this weekend was setup as the perfect storm of perfection or down right horror.
Steppenwolf tried something new with this production. They asked Tina to keep a blog throughout the process ( from pre-production all the way through) and gave the 17 year old Claire Elizabth Saxe a camera to post video blogs. I and others got a sharing and almost voyeuristic view of Tina's process, the designers ideas, and the actors rehearsal. Tina had travelled to Amsterdam to experience Anne's world and her Annex. She came back and with her designer, Richard Hoover, planned to recreate on stage a mirror image of the attic on Steppenwolf's stage. Martha Lavey, the Artistic Direcor said it would be to expensive and heavy to recreate a 5 story set piece, come up with something else. Late one night at their wits end Tina asked Richard what else weren't they thinking of. Very cavalierly Richard said "We could just get rid of it all and tape out the rooms on the floor."
Now I knew this coming into the space. I knew it was a bold move to do this that could either completely reinvigorate the work or turn it into a new-agey dance piece. I was hoping for the former. When you walk into the theatre it is a blank stage with all curtains removed, the back wall exposed, a simple black floor, no sense of hiding the fact that this is a theatre. Quite the opposite, Richard Hoover incorporated themes of the auditorium into the theatre space, letting us know we are part of this world. On stage were all the chairs, dressers, beds, tables, etc that made up the Frank Annex. Without any fanfare or announcement the audience quieted on its own (always a magical moment) the lights dimmed, and a trap door opened down stage and the frank family walked out. The stood facing upstage at the mountain of furniture ahead of them. A voice over of Anne began telling about how the Franks had to come early to a cluttered annex that they weren't prepared for. Then they reached down to remove black tape that was covering the white tape that marked the rooms. With this simple act, the audience all saw walls go up, with doors, and wallpaper, a roof. A world was created in our minds eye. I began to cry at this simple elucidation. I didn't stop crying for three hours.
This show has firmly planted itself in my top ten and the more I think about it the more it is moving up to the top. I've witnessed Peter Brook's Hamlet, Grotowski's Action!, Mother Courage in the Park, Tan Dun's The First Emperor, Tina's Time of your Life, The Schaubuhne's Hedda Gabler, and others. But this production will not leave my mind. From the awe inspiring set, to the ensemble acting, to the perfect ( and I mean perfect) use of viewpoints, a divine Claire Elizabeth Saxe as Anne, a humblingly simplistic Yasen Payenkov as Otto. We as an audience left the production knowing we had experienced the closest thing the theatre has to a miracle. We couldn't even clap when the show ended. I was numb. The lights came back up, the actors walked on stage, and collectively we stood. Still without clapping. It felt wrong. It felt cheap. You clap for your cousins recital, you clap for Chipper Jones when he hits a home run, you clap for a comedian at the end of a pithy and well placed joke. You don't clap for the holy. You stand.
There was a talk back afterwards. The audience members ( non-theatre people ) all had read the blogs and watched the videos I mentioned earlier. They talked about how they felt a sense of ownership in the production. I started to cry again. Isn't this what we want? A community with a sense of ownership? This show was perfect, but how much more was it because the effort was put out there to get the community involved as well?
It runs for two more weeks. If you can, go and see it. You will not regret it, you will remember it, and it will haunt you. You will chase after what you experience in everything you do.
Steppenwolf tried something new with this production. They asked Tina to keep a blog throughout the process ( from pre-production all the way through) and gave the 17 year old Claire Elizabth Saxe a camera to post video blogs. I and others got a sharing and almost voyeuristic view of Tina's process, the designers ideas, and the actors rehearsal. Tina had travelled to Amsterdam to experience Anne's world and her Annex. She came back and with her designer, Richard Hoover, planned to recreate on stage a mirror image of the attic on Steppenwolf's stage. Martha Lavey, the Artistic Direcor said it would be to expensive and heavy to recreate a 5 story set piece, come up with something else. Late one night at their wits end Tina asked Richard what else weren't they thinking of. Very cavalierly Richard said "We could just get rid of it all and tape out the rooms on the floor."
Now I knew this coming into the space. I knew it was a bold move to do this that could either completely reinvigorate the work or turn it into a new-agey dance piece. I was hoping for the former. When you walk into the theatre it is a blank stage with all curtains removed, the back wall exposed, a simple black floor, no sense of hiding the fact that this is a theatre. Quite the opposite, Richard Hoover incorporated themes of the auditorium into the theatre space, letting us know we are part of this world. On stage were all the chairs, dressers, beds, tables, etc that made up the Frank Annex. Without any fanfare or announcement the audience quieted on its own (always a magical moment) the lights dimmed, and a trap door opened down stage and the frank family walked out. The stood facing upstage at the mountain of furniture ahead of them. A voice over of Anne began telling about how the Franks had to come early to a cluttered annex that they weren't prepared for. Then they reached down to remove black tape that was covering the white tape that marked the rooms. With this simple act, the audience all saw walls go up, with doors, and wallpaper, a roof. A world was created in our minds eye. I began to cry at this simple elucidation. I didn't stop crying for three hours.
This show has firmly planted itself in my top ten and the more I think about it the more it is moving up to the top. I've witnessed Peter Brook's Hamlet, Grotowski's Action!, Mother Courage in the Park, Tan Dun's The First Emperor, Tina's Time of your Life, The Schaubuhne's Hedda Gabler, and others. But this production will not leave my mind. From the awe inspiring set, to the ensemble acting, to the perfect ( and I mean perfect) use of viewpoints, a divine Claire Elizabeth Saxe as Anne, a humblingly simplistic Yasen Payenkov as Otto. We as an audience left the production knowing we had experienced the closest thing the theatre has to a miracle. We couldn't even clap when the show ended. I was numb. The lights came back up, the actors walked on stage, and collectively we stood. Still without clapping. It felt wrong. It felt cheap. You clap for your cousins recital, you clap for Chipper Jones when he hits a home run, you clap for a comedian at the end of a pithy and well placed joke. You don't clap for the holy. You stand.
There was a talk back afterwards. The audience members ( non-theatre people ) all had read the blogs and watched the videos I mentioned earlier. They talked about how they felt a sense of ownership in the production. I started to cry again. Isn't this what we want? A community with a sense of ownership? This show was perfect, but how much more was it because the effort was put out there to get the community involved as well?
It runs for two more weeks. If you can, go and see it. You will not regret it, you will remember it, and it will haunt you. You will chase after what you experience in everything you do.
posted by The Necessary Theatre at 7:17 PM
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