In January the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta put on a puppet production called Anne Frank: Within and Without that looks as if it would have been amazing. An article in the New York Times, describes how the writer and director, Bobby Box
“tackles his subject by having two actresses manipulate the doll-like puppets, which look like pose-able mannequins. The actresses, pin-curled and identically costumed in prim knee-length gray wool skirts, white blouses, gray cardigans and Mary Janes, are both introduced to the audience as Anne. Sometimes they seem to be personifications of Anne’s memory or different aspects of her personality. Sometimes they seem like ghostly grown-up versions of an Anne Frank who has been allowed, in death, to age and return to tell her story.
The two performers move the puppets in and around a giant cutaway dollhouse, an exact replica of the annex rooms where Anne and her family hid. Watching grown women play with dolls this way turns out to be surprisingly macabre.
There are examples of the tender-turned-terrible throughout the show, including a cradle that later becomes the cattle car carrying the residents of the annex to their deaths.”
There is also a great slide show of some of the scenes, and puppets in action, linked in the sidebar of the NYT article.
In other accounts the production is described as ‘a celebration of life love and faith’ and ‘a meditation on hope and all that is good in human kind’.
Here are some other links:
JTOnline: Puppets tell Tragic Girl’s Story
SouthernVoice Online: Adult puppet show with two gay principals
aligns Holocaust experience with religious and political extremism that
still exists today.
Bobby Box’s photos in Amsterdam for set design
Productions in the works: notes on the production as it progresses
Access Atlanta: Ann Frank’s hope inspires puppet show (3 pics)
Updated links 2015
