Anne's last lines now are far darker, and the play ends with the focus on Otto Frank, the bereft survivor of the camps, as he graphically describes what eventually happened to each of the other members of his household. Especially good are Harris Yulin and Linda Lavin as Mr. and Mrs. Van Daan, decent folk in ordinary life who come close to cracking in the terrible circumstances of their confinement. Also noteworthy is Austin Pendleton as Dussel, the fussy dentist who is allergic to cats. There is nothing wrong with George Hearn and Sophie Hayden, who play Anne's parents, and Missy Yager, as Margot Frank, but they don't have much to do except serve the plot. As her escort was whispering in her ear just before the performance began, she suddenly drew back and stared at him in surprise.
Time is brutal.
Its last performance before the holidays is today at 3, but it will reopen on Jan. 6 for a brief additional run. The production is no mere adaptation of the Harriet Beecher Stowe classic, but an exuberant consideration of the novel that, a year after its publication in 1852, had sold 305,000 copies in this country and an estimated 2,500,000 copies in the rest of the world in English and in translation. It includes dramatized scenes from the book, bits and pieces of six different stage adaptations, critical commentaries, minstrel show variations and excerpts from slave narratives. This keeps the members of the audience deliciously alert even as they sometimes struggle to find their way through the various narratives, testimonies and sheer high jinks. It helps to have some knowledge of the novel, but it is not essential.