GOOD AT HEART: THE DRAMATIZATION OF THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK AND ITS INFLUENCE ...

139 Pages·2016·1.02 MB·English

by  Whitney Stalnaker

GOOD AT HEART: THE DRAMATIZATION OF THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON AMERICAN CULTURAL PERCEPTIONS

A thesis submitted
to Kent State University in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of Master of Arts

by

Whitney Lewis Stalnaker

May, 2016
© Copyright
All rights reserved
Except for previously published materials
Thesis written by
Whitney Lewis Stalnaker
B.S., Glenville State College, 2011
M.A., Kent State University, 2016

Approved by

Dr. Richard Steigmann-Gall , Advisor

Dr. Kenneth Bindas , Chair, Department of History

Dr. James Blank , Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................... iii
PREFACE ........................................................................................................................................v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. ix
INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1
Historiography ...............................................................................................................5
Methodology ..................................................................................................................9
Why This Play? ............................................................................................................12
CHAPTERS
ONE MARKETING ANNE FRANK: THE CREATION OF AN
AMERICANIZED ICON ............................................................................................14

Meyer Levin and the Rejected Script...........................................................................15
Creating Anne Frank ....................................................................................................16
Representation of Judaism ...........................................................................................20
Effects on the Supporting Characters ..........................................................................27
The Public Response ....................................................................................................35
TWO 1990S AMERICA: CHALLENGES TO ANNE FRANK’S IMAGE
AND THE PUBLIC RESISTANCE ............................................................................42

Updating the Historiography........................................................................................43
The Holocaust in 1990s America .................................................................................48
Changes to the Script ...................................................................................................51
The Public Response ....................................................................................................67
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THREE ANNE FRANK IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: DEEPENING
THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE ...................................................................................82

The Struggle for Ownership.........................................................................................84
An Expanding Historiography .....................................................................................86
Reimagining Anne Frank .............................................................................................88
Case Studies .................................................................................................................92
The Public Response ....................................................................................................99
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................116
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................121

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PREFACE

Like millions across the globe, my introduction to the Holocaust via The Diary of Anne
Frank at the age of sixteen was a formative experience. However, unlike most readers, who
closed the book with a sense of inspiration or spiritual triumph, my experience left me with a
nagging sense of incompleteness. Certainly, Anne had documented her own thoughts and
experiences thoroughly, and with impressive journalistic prowess, but what of the others in
hiding with her? Though their presence is significant in Anne’s writing, I felt as though I was
looking at them through an extremely blurry lens, as they were only mentioned in terms of their
relationships with the diarist and not independently. It was the supporting characters who
intrigued me the most, and I wanted – even needed – to know more about them.
So, I embarked upon the exhaustive process of uncovering more, researching as
thoroughly as an eleventh-grader possibly could, and the information I found was fascinating:
Anne’s sister, Margot, had also kept a diary while they were in hiding, presumed to have been
lost after their arrest. Friedrich “Fritz” Pfeffer, family friend and Anne’s roommate in hiding,
had a son from a previous marriage who he had sent to safety in England when the Nazi threat
consumed Germany. Auguste van Pels, the matriarch of the family who shared the hiding place
with the Franks and Pfeffer, had secretly given a valuable antique ring to Miep Gies during their
time in hiding as a token of gratitude for her help in their concealment. Anne’s mother, Edith,
had come of age in 1920s Germany, where she dressed in flapper-style dresses and collected jazz
records. The wealth of information overwhelmed me, yet in spite of these obviously intriguing
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bits of information, it seemed that little attention was truly being paid to these individuals,
outside of their interactions with Anne. No books exist, aside from a single biography of Otto
Frank, dedicated to an empirical examination of these individuals’ lives. Their lives,
experiences, and untimely ends – just as rich and complex as those of Anne herself – were
essentially obscured.
My frustration was only compounded when my local theatre company decided to produce
The Diary of Anne Frank, the theatrical adaptation of Anne’s story, written by Frances Goodrich
and Albert Hackett and later adapted by Wendy Kesselman. Though a comparison of the
original script and its updated adaptation quickly revealed that Kesselman’s script (the one that
we chose to produce) was exponentially more faithful to the historical story than its predecessor,
the depiction of the supporting characters in particular struck me. Aside from Anne, it was as
though they had all been written as caricatures, the humanity that made their stories so poignant
entirely erased from their onstage portrayals. Portraying Edith Frank, I was thrilled to discover
the monologue in which she unburdens her fears to Miep Gies, yet found myself relegated to
oversimplified reactions in many other scenes, usually chiding or fussing over Anne. The
climactic scene in which Edith discovers that Hermann van Pels (or Herman van Daan, onstage)
has been stealing bread from the dwindling food supply certainly allowed for some character
development on my part, but I was shocked at the inaccurate and blatantly slanderous scene in
which it occurred: at no point was it indicated that Hermann van Pels stole anything, let alone
from his fellow hiders. I have since portrayed Edith three separate times, and the scene has
proven an increasing point of contention for me the more that I have performed it.
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As I continued to discover the depths of the dichotomy between history and the stage, so
did my castmates (likely assisted by the fact that I was none too quiet about it), and we took it
upon ourselves to conduct the research necessary to better represent our characters. The results
of our research took the form of many post-rehearsal discussions in which we vented our
annoyance with the scant information available about our characters’ lives and attempted to “fill
in the blanks” of their stories. Ultimately, these conversations left me with questions that would
eventually become the basis of my thesis research. Namely, why was there such a dichotomy
between the historical story and its interpretation on the stage? How is it that these people had
become relegated to oversimplified caricatures of their already limited portrayals in Anne’s
diary, especially when Otto Frank himself oversaw the first script’s creation? Why is it that, now
over seventy years after Anne’s death, nobody has called for a dramatization that does justice to
all of the people involved in her story?
As it would turn out, the answers to these questions are neither direct nor easily
explainable, but may only be understood through a thorough examination of the culture in which
the play was written, as well as the demands of the public that has consumed it for so many
decades. Through many hours of exhaustive research, fueled by countless cups of coffee, I set
out to tackle the questions about the “supporting cast” of Anne’s diary that have plagued me for
nearly a decade, but the story that emerged from my research transcended their onstage portrayal
and soon became a complex narrative of American peculiarities, artistic interpretation,
marketability, and cultural iconography. Though I remain frustrated at the inadequate attention
these historical figures have received, I have now conquered my sizable confusion about how
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this particular theatrical script came to be and why it persists in a culture that seemingly should
have addressed its disparity with the historical story by now.
It is with this in mind that I present my thesis, the fruits of the labor that I undertook
during my two years in the Kent State University History Department. The evolution of the
dramatization and its American reception, which I will present in the coming pages, is not meant
to put a period on the story, but is instead written in the hope that it will inspire an ellipsis. A
conversation about how Anne Frank’s story has been presented to and synthesized by the public
through its theatrical script is vital in assessing the responsibilities of artistic interpretations in
disseminating historical stories, and, more importantly, in understanding how the historical story
can become grossly altered and its players wholly marginalized if the interpretations fail to meet
these responsibilities. It is my hope that this work, born of my years of frustration with how
Anne’s story has been publically presented, will contribute to this extremely necessary
conversation.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Researching a rather obscure branch of an otherwise well known topic is a sizable
challenge, and one that I could not have possibly undertaken without the encouragement,
assistance, and patience of many over the past two years. With this in mind, I would like to
acknowledge the following individuals.
To my advisor, Dr. Richard Steigmann-Gall, for the incredibly formative guidance and
the many conversations over so many cups of coffee that I have lost count, in which he helped
me to harness my inherent passion for the subject and create a work of which I am genuinely
proud.
To the members of my thesis committee, Dr. Shane Strate, Dr. Mary Ann Heiss, and Dr.
Eric van Baars, for taking such active roles in this project and for their invaluable feedback
during its creation.
To the members of the Kent State University faculty, including Dr. Timothy Scarnecchia,
Dr. Kenneth Bindas, and Professor Chaya Kessler for their unending support and input
throughout this process.
To the archival staff at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theatre Research at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, and specifically Assistant Director Mary K. Huelsbeck and
Visual Materials Curator Andy Kraushaar, for tirelessly digitizing the endless folders of the
Kermit Bloomgarden Collection so that I could conduct my research from many states away.
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To Kara Robinson of the Kent State University Library for the monumental assistance
she provided in my search for the periodicals and archival collections integral to the success of
this project.
To my fellow Graduate Assistants in Bowman Hall 205 (and specifically Sarah Zabic,
Alyssa Cady, Kayla Mason, and Christine Pienoski), for forming a community that has provided
me with confidence, necessary distractions, emotional support, and a place to call home during
my time at Kent State. When I look back on my time at Kent State University, it is the time
spent in Bowman 205 that I will truly miss the most, and I cannot credit my colleagues enough
for that fact.
To my mother, Sherri Stalnaker, my grandmother, Audra Stalnaker, and the rest of my
wonderful family for unequivocally believing that I would succeed in my pursuits, for serving as
constant pillars of support, and for always giving me a home full of love and light to return to.
To my castmates in Glenville State College Theatre, as well as our director Dennis
Wemm, for all of the late night conversations after our rehearsals had concluded, which
ultimately led me to pursue this topic.
To Patrick Montgomery, Rose Johnson, and Justin Blankenship, for being there for
absolutely everything – not only through the duration of this project, but for the many, many
years we have known each other – and for all of the laughs, late nights, and road trips in which
they became my second family.
To Jamie Stanley, for far more than I can express in one paragraph, but mostly for
looking on the bright side when I tried so hard to be pessimistic, for unfailingly knowing how to
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