Frankly Entertaining

The second most important thing to know about “The Diary of Anne Frank” is that the play is often warm and frequently amusing, if not knock-down funny.

The most important thing, of course, is that Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett based their Pulitzer Prize-winning 1956 play on the diary of a young woman who hid, with her family, for three years in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.

The play is currently running at the Santa Paula Theater Center, with a cast of some of Ventura County’s ablest actors, under the direction of Gerald Castillo.

Ronald Rezac and Linda Livingston star--if that’s the word in what is truly an ensemble cast--as Mr. and Mrs. Frank, allowed to remain, concealed in a loft above a factory run by the sympathetic Mr. Kraler.

They and daughters Anne (Alexandra Currie) and Margot (Gina Lopez) are joined by the van Danns (John McKinley, Camille LaFredo) and their son, Peter (Peter Krause). Just as it seems that the smallish loft can hold no more, they are joined by a dentist, Mr. Dussel.

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Living in such cramped conditions--nobody can leave, and there’s no noise or even running water (toilets, for instance) allowed during the factory’s working hours--it’s not long before people start getting testy.

Even the fact that they all face death if discovered doesn’t stop the bickering.

Performances throughout are never less than good, under Castillo’s reliable sensitive hand, with Currie particularly noteworthy as the 14-ish Anne. (Jennifer Eaton also appears, briefly, as Kraler’s daughter; she will be replaced by Lisa Whitcomb when the production moves to Simi Valley in late March).

Jeff G. Rack and Glen Heppner’s stage set could be a downright attractive dwelling under more hospitable circumstances.

There’s one marginal drawback, which may lie in the play itself: The Nazis here (who never appear onstage) are drawn with a relatively light hand, and the threat to Jews in Holland and elsewhere could have been more dramatically portrayed.

DETAILS

“The Diary of Anne Frank” continues Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. through March 19 at the Santa Paula Theater Center, 125 S. 7th St. Tickets are $15; $12, seniors and students; and $8, ages 12 and under. For reservations or further information, call 525-4645.

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Rezac and Livingston, long recognized as among Ventura County’s finest actors, also star Feb. 24 in the currently running Rubicon production of “Love Letters” at the Laurel Theater in Ventura.

Rezac, 54, came to the area from Chicago in 1969, stationed with the Navy in Port Hueneme.

“I hooked up with a fellow at the base who was friends with [director] Michael Maynez, who cast me as the 13-year-old suitor in the Plaza Players production of ‘A Member of the Wedding,’ ” he said. “That was my first time onstage, ever.”

Maynez subsequently cast Rezac in numerous other parts, including “many that sane people wouldn’t have cast me in--parts that I wasn’t old enough for or had the wrong body type. God bless him--whatever mistakes he made in casting me, he gave me a lot of experience.”

During the last 30 years, he said, he’s “managed to appear in every type of theater except theater of the absurd, which I studiously avoid--if it doesn’t make any sense to me, I’m not going to make sense to the audience.”

Rezac is known among his fellow actors for his habit of coming to the first rehearsal with his lines already learned, “off-book” in theater parlance.

“I don’t have a photographic memory,” he said. “It’s a matter of concentration and work. I sit down with the script and go over and over it. No director has ever insisted that I come to the first rehearsal off-book, but I’ve never heard one complain.”

So “Love Letters,” in which the actors read onstage, is a novelty, allowing frequent cast changes, as in the Rubicon production.

“I just think of it as a free ride for the actors,” Rezac said. “In ‘Love Letters,’ you do just one rehearsal and then the show. That causes actors to perk up their ears when offered an opportunity to perform the play.”

DETAILS

“Love Letters” is running Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through March 5 at the Laurel Theatre, 1006 E. Main St., Ventura. The cast changes every performance. Ticket prices are usually $25; $20, students and seniors; and $15, groups. For up-to-date casting information, reservations or further information, call 667-2900.

Todd Everett can be reached at teverett@concentric.net.