Anne Being Frank

Coral Drouyn explores a new play which ponders what would have happened if the most famous victim of the Holocaust had lived?

Whether you’re old enough to have seen it at the movies, or on TV, or maybe classic video, who amongst us doesn’t remember the moment when the Nazi cars were heard outside that Amsterdam apartment? Millie Perkins (Anne Frank) and Richard Beymer (Peter Van Daan) fell into each other’s arms and kissed. The voice-over told us “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

Choked up, overwhelmed by the intensity of the inevitable ending, we wept into torn tissues or buckets of popcorn - and then got on with our lives, barely giving a thought to how her life would end in a concentration camp.

It was a Hollywood movie that didn’t even make the top grossing list. After all, in 1959 we had Ben Hur and Some Like it Hot. A small film like The Diary of Anne Frank was, well, not your average entertainment even then. It was horror and romance in equal portions as we followed the young Anne Frank, hidden in an attic with family and friends for more than three years. Her diary was important then, in the aftermath of World War II. NOW it is vital to remind us that history DOES repeat … if we let it.

Anne Frank’s diary is real. The Holocaust is real. I use the present tense because we must never forget that. It’s too easy to dismiss the death of 6 million Jews and many millions of others as hyperbole or myth. And if we dismiss or diffuse or dare to forget the truth, then we are doomed to repeat it.

So, when esteemed Israeli born Australian Playwright Ron Elisha started wondering what might have been the outcome if Anne Frank had survived the Holocaust, it was inevitable that a new play would be born. Anne Being Frank is the result of those musings by a master craftsman and multi-award-winning playwright, known in his parallel life as Doctor Ron to his patients.

Of course, when a writer creates a one woman play about an iconic person at an incredible time in history, it requires a remarkable actress to bring it to life. In this case it required a remarkable JEWISH actress with a fierce commitment to her family history and a determination to keep the faith in telling the stories of her heritage.

Alexis Fishman was born and raised in Sydney. Life was comfortable, but not without its dark side.

“There are probably NO Jewish families in Australia – maybe the world – whose lives have not been touched in some way by the Holocaust,” she tells me. “The world goes on, as it should, and the memories of history dim for other people, but not for us.”

Alexis’ grandparents lost their families in the concentration camps, and she has known their story all her life.

“It’s different when you are personally involved,” she explains. “You don’t have the choice to forget. That history is part of your genetic makeup, your DNA. I knew even as a child, that somehow, I was the next generation that had to make sure history was not forgotten.”

Alexis decided before she was even in her teens that she would be an actress.

“It wasn’t really a case of ‘I want to’, or ‘I’d like to’. The first time I went to the theatre I was maybe seven or eight. I made my mind up that’s what I am going to do,” she says.

Clearly, she was not to be argued with.

After high school she went to Perth to train at WAAPA in Musical Theatre. I remember seeing her in Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along - a student production - and she was compelling, clearly bound for an impressive career. It’s fair to say that every time she stepped onto a stage, there were rave reviews about her singing, acting and chutzpah/charisma. Alexis stole the show as a young Dusty Springfield. Critics raved and she quickly made a name for herself in her native Sydney, but Anne Frank was still a world away.

“Even before WAAPA I held the belief, as a musical theatre performer, that I needed to be in New York. It was inevitable. There is only one Broadway after all,” she explains. “In 2008, not that long after I graduated, I auditioned for the musical version of Little Women for Kookaburra. I’d loved the book, and I desperately wanted to play Jo. When I auditioned, I told myself, ‘If I don’t get this I am going to New York’. Of course, I thought I would get it. Maybe I was overconfident. But when I didn’t, it was a done deal. I just packed up and went to New York – no work – not much money, very few friends who had also taken the plunge, mostly from WAAPA. It was exhilarating but not always easy.”

For the next 15 years Alexis divided her time between New York and Sydney. When there was no work, she created her own, discovering her talents as a writer. She wrote and performed six one woman shows, including her remarkable tribute to Amy Winehouse, playing in both Australia and New York. Her portrayal of Winehouse was so accurate it was like a reincarnation.

“Cabaret is different,” she tells me. “Because of the intimacy and the connection to the audience, but ultimately it’s all about having something to say and entertaining the people who have paid to see you.”

Fervently committed to keeping the true Holocaust history alive, Alexis also toured schools, telling her grandparents’ story to children.

Now with dual citizenship, Alexis could tailor her projects to whatever world she was in. “Covid got in the way of course,” she tells me. “I was in Sydney and my husband in New York and I was hoping to be doing a tour of Fiddler on the Roof. But that’s Showbiz. Everything was put on hold.”

Not everything, because Ron was busy working on Anne Being Frank and the two would come together to create something special.

“From the moment I read it I knew that the audience for this play HAD to be younger people. People for whom the Holocaust was a line in a history book. The only way to truly tell the story of a generation is to tell it through one person. This is Anne’s story, reimagined.”

Elisha’s play moves Anne Franks’ story through three different worlds, exploring Anne at three different stages of her life. The first is the years in hiding, when Anne’s diary, that the world knows so well, was written. The second is the concentration camp at Belsen, where she died. The third is the “What If?” world of a New York publishing house where Anne, if she had lived, is fighting to maintain the integrity of her story, with all its horror and crimes against humanity, with an editor who wants it watered down for public consumption, maintaining the innocence of the teenage Anne’s diary. But the imaginary adult Anne insists on expanding the story to include the uncomfortable truth of the monstrosities she and six million others endured. It’s a gut-wrenching emotional roller-coaster of a play, that can either elevate or traumatise its audience, but it may be the most important play since the holocaust itself.

In 2023 the play won Broadway World’s Best Off-Broadway Play and Alexis won Best Performance for her role as the three Annes. The critics were astounded by her skills, while grappling with their own emotional responses. But if the play is so emotionally challenging for them, what is it like for Alexis herself to immerse everything she is and live that nightmare night after night?

“I am an actress, and I have learned to separate myself from my work. You must for your sanity. For 90 minutes alone on stage I live as Anne and, yes, it is harrowing and all-encompassing, but it is Anne’s truth without being preachy or ham-fisted. But then I leave her behind and I’m Alexis, wife and mother, again. It’s not a play I could do a very long run in. I think if I had to do it 8 shows a week for years it would break me. That’s one reason why the seasons are short.”

Which means there is only a limited season at the Sydney Opera House this September to experience this remarkable work and performance.

It is something more than a play.  Whilst it is moving and sometimes humorous and entertaining, it is a reminder to all of us never to let history fade into the past.

As Alexis sums up, “I have a young daughter. When she is old enough, I want her to understand what is a part of her DNA. Older generations can only just remember the facts now of what happened 80 years ago. I want all young people to understand this isn’t just a story. If we ignore history and don’t learn from it, we are doomed to repeat it. And it could so easily happen again.”

Photographer: Grant Leslie