A new play about Anne Frank premiered in Amsterdam on Thursday night in a specially-built theatre in the hope of reaching a new audience with her story, nearly 70 years after her death.

King Willem-Alexander attended the premier along with dozens of Dutch celebrities and writers in what was the red carpet event of the year so far.

The play, entitled simply Anne, begins with a fictitious account of Anne meeting a young publisher in Paris shortly after the end of the war. Anne then goes on to tell him about her life, about going into hiding and eventually about being betrayed and deported.

In reality, Anne died of typhoid in Bergen-Belsen shortly before the extermination camp was liberated.

Theatre

The play is being performed in a purpose-built theatre with 11,000 seats and will have to sell out for a year to break even, the Volkskrant says.

Anne is only the second production to have been given permission to quote directly from the diaries. The first, The Diary of Anne Frank, premiered on Broadway in 1955.

The script for the new version was written by husband and wife novelists Jessica Durlacher and Leon de Winter.

Non-Dutch locals and tourists will be able to follow the play from July via tablets carrying the dialogue in seven languages, including Russian and German. Chinese and Japanese will be added later.

Criticism

The play generated considerable criticism earlier this year when the Amsterdam-based Anne Frank Foundation said the commercial services – including a €180 special arrangement – were inappropriate.

‘It is being presented as a fun evening out with a boat trip, snacks, drinks and hostesses,’ the foundation said in a statement. ‘In our judgement, this is not appropriate for the history of Anne Frank.’

Jewish groups and camp survivors also said they felt the commerciality should have been downplayed. ‘You can enjoy a multiple course menu,’ survivor Ted Mustaph told the Dutch media. ‘In Bergen-Belsen we did not have a menu. There was nothing to eat at all.’

Family

Nevertheless, the sole surviving member of the Frank family, her cousin Buddy Elias, has welcomed the show. Elias, 88, who got to know Anne in the 1930s when her family visited his in Switzerland, said after the performance he was ‘full of emotion’.

‘The story of my life came back,’ he told reporters. ‘I have seen many productions about Anne but this was by far the best. It is so important that this story is told to young people.’

And he distanced himself from the Anne Frank Foundation’s criticism by saying: ‘Ridiculous. People always say that kind of thing, but an audience just has to come and see it.’

Elias is president of the Basel-based Anne Frank Fund which was set up by Anne’s father Otto after the war. The new play is based on an initiative from the Swiss group.

Reviews

Reviews for the show have so far been mixed, according to a review of the Dutch papers. According to broadcaster Nos, the use of old footage and the set provide a wealth of effects but the play itself is flat. The audience do not feel ‘Anne’s inner turmoil’.

Television presenter Frits Barend said the performance had left him perplexed. ‘The end really punches hard,’ he said. ‘And all those thoughts about how the children wanted to live… then you see how important freedom is.’

Theatre producer Ivo ten Hove described the show as ‘a big, people’s play with lots of cinematographic effects’. The monologues were ‘beautiful’ he said, but he had difficulty with the ‘sentimental’ ending.

Dispute

The Anne Frank Foundation and Anne Frank Fund have been involved in a   sometimes vicious spat about who owns a number of papers belonging to her father Otto, the Volkskrant reported last year.

The Switzerland-based Anne Frank Fund wants the return of documents and photos which it lent to the Amsterdam-based Anne Frank Foundation to include in a new Family Frank Centre due to open in Frankfurt in 2016.

The foundation runs the property housing the secret attic where Anne and her family lived during World War II until they were betrayed and deported. The fund owns the rights to her diary.

Anne Frank’s diary was written during the two years she was in hiding behind a bookcase on Amsterdam’s Prinsengracht canal. It has since been translated into 60 languages.

‘It is important the story does not die,’ Yves Kugelmann, director of the Anne Frank Fund, told the BBC. ‘We are living in a Playstation generation – that’s what we’re competing with. But there are so many important lessons that Anne Frank tells us about discrimination.’