‘The Diary of a Jewish Girl Anne Frank on stage

It is a play about an uncommon heroine living in uncommon times and uncommon circumstances,’ says Zbigniew Brzoza, author of the adaptation and director of The Diary of Anne Frank.

Asked who Anne Frank is to him and what she embodies, Zbigniew Brzoza said: ‘She is the personification of the fate of European Jews’. ‘She is an extraordinarily wise girl who, at the age of 15, had to resolve moral questions; who had to live through experiences that are terrible even for adults, let alone for a sensitive teenager,’ - he said. ‘In order not to lose herself in this cruel time, Anne had to find answers for herself to the fundamental question of what goodness is, what human solidarity is and how to resist violence,’ - he explained.

The director recalled that ‘Anne Frank, being against evil and totalitarianism, had to hide herself in Amsterdam’.

Asked if, like Anne Frank, he believed that ‘people are inherently good’, Brzoza said: ‘In her Diary there is a message for all of us for now and forever.’ ‘Because if we don't believe that people are good - then our lives have no meaning. In fact, without building goodness, life is not worth living. And this is what Anne Frank wrote about: about the need for goodness, about finding goodness in oneself even when one is living surrounded by evil.’ - he said. ‘The Netherlands at the time was a country ruled by the Nazis. They sent 80 per cent of the Dutch Jews east to concentration camps, to extermination.’ - he stressed.

‘The set design will be very simple, because we are trying to evoke on stage the attic of an outbuilding in an industrial part of Amsterdam, where the Frank family hid,’ - explained the director. He pointed out that he uses multimedia in the play, ‘because Anne Frank's Diary itself is stylistically diverse’. ‘As well as describing her everyday life, she is trying, exploring the possibilities of language. She tries to find a way of describing the situation she finds herself in.’ - he explained.

Zbigniew Brzoza recalled that ‘Anne Frank very much believed that - as the Dutch queen had announced - after the war she would take part in a competition for the best description of Dutch life during the Second World War’.

Asked if the fact that he is working with a team of puppet actors influences the form of the show, he said that of course it does. ‘We will be using masks specially prepared for me by the Puppet Theatre artists. I don't want to reveal the nature of these masks, because it's surprising. They are not classical. They are autonomous, they tell a story about something in themselves.’ - He explained. ‘They are simply extraordinary and original, and at the same time they perfectly reflect the emotions that +Diary+ of Anne Frank is about’. - Zbigniew Brzoza assessed.

‘The Diary of a Jewish Girl Anne Frank is one of the most harrowing accounts of the Holocaust and a poignant account of childhood and adolescence in a state of emergency. Hiding from the Germans in a hiding place in Amsterdam, Anne wrote down her experiences from the perspective of a curious adolescent. As well as describing everyday life, Anne referred to her national and religious identity and other serious topics, such as her difficult relationship with her mother, her first love or the physical changes that accompany puberty’. - reads the announcement of the performance.

However, as emphasised, the diaries written by the girl are not pessimistic. ‘I still believe that people are inherently good,’ Anne wrote. She was 15 years old when her family was discovered in their hiding place as a result of a denunciation, arrested and deported to Auschwitz.’ - The Puppet Theatre website recalled.

‘The play, directed and adapted by the excellent director Zbigniew Brzoza, whose work has repeatedly dealt with the fate and attitudes of people towards war, will evoke in the stage version the beautiful and shocking testimony of a time of contempt,’ it was announced.

The author of the translation is Alicja Oczko. Adapted and directed by Zbigniew Brzoza. Set design is by Wojciech Żogała and costumes by Aleksandra Reda. Music - Mikołaj Trzaska. Grzegorz Bernatek is responsible for the multimedia.

Performed by Grzegorz Feluś, Roman Holc, Aneta Jucejko-Pałęcka, Bartosz Krawczyk, Magdalena Pamuła, Anna Porusiło-Dużyńska, Hanna Turnau, Grzegorz Pawlak (voice) and Wojciech Pałęcki, Andrzej Perzyna and Sergii Oberemok.

The performance is aimed at audiences aged 12 and over.