Can something be about everything? Imagine the lens of a camera through which you see everything, including a lens and a camera. Now you’re ready for Carol Lempert’s latest one-woman show, “After Anne Frank.”
On the surface, this is a performance about an actress who, through serendipity, has played every female part in the theatrical staging of the Diary of Anne Frank, and this actress happens to be the one telling you the story.
But it is also about the uneasy interdependence of history and drama. Are there some realities so profound that mere words can never do them justice? Does telling the story exploit its source? But if we don’t tell the story out of some deep reverence for the unthinkable will it whither in silence, and be forgotten?
These philosophical and moral questions spring out of this virtuoso performance interlaced with humor, yes laugh-out-loud humor, and journalistic, political, and legal lessons about how many different lives a single story can take.
It’s a play about a play that asks you how much playing is too much. Does this sound clever? It’s certainly that, but it’s much more; the talent of the actress turns the “ideas” with which it plays into a palpable experience for the audience.
The playwright/actress puts a piece of crystal in your hands, then turns it over, and with each new turn, something else gets revealed. And then, with genuine concern, she reaches across vales of karma to the original protagonist holding pen and notebook.
The Fringe has elected to include “After Anne Frank” in its upcoming season. Be sure to check local listings.
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