Review: The Diary of Anne Frank (Mainfrankentheater)

Under the title "The Diary of Anne Frank – a project in urban space", Mainfrankentheater has been staging a production since 9 April 2022 that addresses not only the fate of the famous writer but also the Würzburg deportations between 1941 and 1944. A hybrid format was chosen for this: the first part of the performance comprises a walk accompanied by an audio documentary from the forecourt of Mainfrankentheater via Spiegel, Textor and Bahnhofstraße to the memorial site "DenkOrt Deportationen 1941—1944" at the main railway station. There, Anouk Elias shines as Anne Frank in the second part in a monologue adaptation of the diary by director Toomas Täht.
The "audio walk" as an introduction to the evening is intended to remind us of the horrors of the Nazi era in the midst of present-day Würzburg life. As you walk together along the route from station to station, you learn through headphones – appropriate to your surroundings – information about individual deported citizens, their former homes and the deportation routes in Würzburg. The Stolpersteine Würzburg working group and the Johanna-Stahl Centre for Jewish History in Lower Franconia were consulted for research into the historical background. Whilst the information may be as interesting as it is harrowing, it is nonetheless difficult to absorb the atmosphere of the audio recordings amidst the cheerful hustle and bustle of Spiegelstraße. One feels almost guilty strolling carefree through the city on a sunny evening and hearing of victims who were driven out of the city at night in columns. 
Hardly have you settled into one of the chairs on the station forecourt when Anouk Elias comes running onto the "stage", bursting with joie de vivre, as if she could barely wait for our arrival like an impatient child on Christmas Eve. She immediately infects you with her good humour and tells with shining eyes of her 13th birthday, of her family's gifts, of her somersaulting cat Moortje and of her classmates. You are pleased to note that the piece follows the essential passages of the diary closely. Apart from undignified disruptions from traffic and rowdy figures gathered around the Kiliansbrunnen, the setting at DenkOrt Deportationen is also excellently chosen. 
From the outset, the actress succeeds in embodying precisely that figure which the reader's mind involuntarily creates: Anne appears profound, intelligent, empathetic, emotional, inquisitive, lively, talkative, stubborn, self-assured, direct and thoughtful all at once. Above all, however, she is one thing: bursting with life. From every word of hers flows that absolute will to live which makes it difficult for the knowing spectator to bond with her, to laugh with her, to dream and to hope. Whenever she tells us a new date in a way that reveals her despair, one fears the day of the first break-in at the hiding place, which occurred just four months before the arrest. In general, the tragedy of the piece arises less from Anne's words than from the fact that with every passing minute – even with every further happy day – one comes closer to the impending end. Whilst Anne is still enthusiastically recounting her first kiss with Peter, one forgets for a brief moment that her imminent death is inevitable. In such moments, Anouk Elias manages to draw the reluctant spectator into the colourful world of thought of a thirteen-year-old, only to let them fall back onto the hard ground of reality. The gripping performance finally ends with information about the fate of the eight people in hiding.
Overall, the production, which can still be visited throughout the summer, is expressly recommended to anyone who has read the book (everyone else should catch up). Tickets can be purchased online or at the box office of Mainfrankentheater.