Published: 15 August 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Peridot Theatre Company, a prominent Melbourne amateur theatre group, was devastated to have a swastika sprayed across a poster for its production of The Diary of Anne Frank.
The incident occurred during the second night of the production last weekend and left cast and crew shattered. Company president Alison Knight told The Jewish Independent that Peridot has never encountered anything like this before.
“The horrible thing was when I cleaned the graffiti with my husband the next morning, the red paint smeared all over her face,” Ms Knight said.
“It looks like she’d been murdered all over again.”
Ms Knight said the ugly incident has unified and steeled the company.
“We’ve resolved we’re not going to be cowered by this behaviour. It’s given us motivation to tell the story really well,” she said.
The production is a pet project for director Kellie Tweeddale, who has held a longstanding interest in Anne Frank’s story. She ensured the cast visited Melbourne’s Holocaust Museum before commencing.
The play is an adaptation of Anne’s famous diary, originally written in 1955 but adapted in 1997.
That the production was targeted is all the more poignant because the company chose to tell Anne Frank’s story in the first place in response to the rise in hate crimes globally.
Indeed, the local council has since told Ms Knight there has been a spate of similar graffiti attacks.
Nevertheless, the show goes on, until August 24. The season began a week ago, and Ms Knight says the feedback she’s received – from Jewish and non-Jewish theatregoers alike – has been overwhelmingly positive.
Hopefully the play’s enduring messages far outshine the spray paint.
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Billboard promoting Anne Frank play defaced with swastika in Melbourne (SBS)
Photo: Graffiti on the poster (Facebook)
