Proof

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

David Auburn’s 2001 Tony Award play Proof flirts with mathematics, digs deep into complicated family relationships, and swims in a torrid of anxiety, resentment and mental illness. A brilliant mathematical mind, Robert, has turned to mush loosing touch with reality. Partly out of obligation, partly out of fear of her own future, and partly out of love and respect for her father, Catherine drops out of Northwestern University to care for him. On her 25th Birthday, slouched on the back porch slider swing she carries on a disjointed conversation with her Dad. She makes it very clear she doesn’t like her New York-based sister Claire who is arriving the next day, for Robert’s funeral. The old man died a week earlier.

Robert (David P. Otey) and Catherine (Jessica Clare) while Hal (Tom McIntyre) looks on in the Evergreen Player’s production of Proof. Photo by Ellen Nelson

Melancholy engulfs Catherine, and the figment of her imagination fades into the dark. Bernie Cardell’s magnificent backyard set includes patio furniture on one side of the porch, and on the other, a tire swing, an upside down wheelbarrow, and dried weeds predominantly bordering the porch. A fence encompasses the yard. The set so detailed, if seriously studied, tells its own story in somewhere Chicago.

The Evergreen Players at the City Stage Theatre in Evergreen are currently in production of Proof.

The torturous confused lives of Catherine and Claire play out fueled with the nudging by Hal’s inquisitive mind, a once upon a time student of Robert’s, plowing through a hundred notebooks of the once brilliant mathematical mind, and now a mathematical professor at the University of Chicago.

Directed by Tony Catanese, David Otey takes on the role of Robert, Jessica Claire plays Catherine, Michelle Merz plays Claire, and Tom McIntyre plays Hal.

A suspenseful mystery creeps in around the corners, although far more mystery than suspenseful. Even though Proof won the Tony for drama, Playwright Auburn either didn’t feel the need to be specific in the intertwined mathematical sequence, or he didn’t understand the calculated mathematical principle itself to give a detailed explanation surrounding the lives of the characters.

Mathematics has always seemed to be one of those out there subjects that a good many people stumble over every day. Addition, subtraction, and sometimes division work OK, especially when attempting to balance a checkbook. It’s the higher math game that moves out of grasp. I have even met people who refuse to have a bank account simply because 2+2 and 5-3 completely elude them.

Perhaps if the highly successful television program Numb3rs had spread its wings in 2001, Auburn would have been far more willing to give a somewhat clarified explanation of the significance of the mysterious theorem. There is a very good chance had Numb3rs previewed in 2001, it wouldn’t have gotten through the first season. Now it is a grabber on how mathematical formulas play such a significant role in solving mysteries.

As much as the mathematical situation is a major problem of the play’s construction, the truth is, the controversial theorem has little to do with the play’s subject: namely family relationships, personal integrity, and when does one sacrifice their life for the sake of another?

Act I uncovers the under current floating between Catherine and Claire, and Catherine and Hal, at least, it is suppose to. This production struggles with intensity, dialogue timing, and allowing honest emotion to escape onto the back porch and yard.

It always astonishes me how refined actors uncomfortable with certain roles; always forget how to use their arms once they get on stage. In his brief introductory conversation with Catherine, Otey as Robert moves as though 2 x 4’s are strapped to his arms. The repetitive gestures he does break free to use are stereotypical mechanized thrusts that definitely take the attention away from Robert’s frustration, illness, and confusion. This creates awkward moments for Clare attempting to engulf herself with Catherine.

Rather than look like an old tired sick man, Otey as Robert looks more like Catherine and Claire’s brother. If his hair was grayed, he wore old man’s clothes, and studied the stance and gait of an old man, Robert would have a far better chance to embrace Otey and vice versa.

The result is Act I drags, timing between dialogues appear in wide gaps, and energy is low. There is the wanting to stop the performance, wind up the actors, and set them free to dig deep into the emotional pool they all have to jump into. They all seem hampered and restricted to reveal their characters. The script fills in the holes, providing information, but I just don’t want to hear what the characters have to say, I want to feel it as they feel it.

It is vital to make this point, because Act II is a completely different story. Well, the story is the same. It’s still the play Proof, but the actors relax, grab a hold of their characters by the throat showing us who they are, not just telling us.

At the top of Act II when Catherine returns from school and finds her father writing furiously at the patio table excited and alive because he feels like the heavy weight of confusion has left him and his mind is awhirl with new ideas. It’s cold outside, but he doesn’t feel it. Catherine asks to read what he has written. That’s the moment Clare’s performance breaks through into Catherine. Her body language and expression breaks the heart. She doesn’t have to say a word, although she reads from his page, the audience knows what Robert has written is gibberish. In that one moment, we know she sees her university days are over, her life has come to a grinding halt. She must come home to take care of her father. I know Clare has it in her. She knocked me out as Sara Jane Moore in Next Stage’s production of Assassins.

In Act II Merz wraps herself in the obnoxious, wanting-to-take control-of-Catherine, get-in-her-face-and- stay-there Claire. I also knew she has it to give because she took my breath away me as Svetlana in Next Stage’s production of Chess. That’s what an astute director does: inspire, draw characters out of actors, allowing actors to go into places where they didn’t know they could venture.

Although part of Catherine resents Claire’s desperate intrusion, she flirts with the idea of being taken care. Sharing her father’s genius in mathematics, she fears that what happened to him will happen to her, a very common human frailty. In Act II McIntyre relaxes into the intense arms of Hal, bites hard into the mystery of the mathematical theorem and has the ability to feed confidence and love into Catherine.

No matter how you cut it, family relationships are fragile animals all to themselves. Proof digs deep into this arena, shedding light on what happens when individuals can’t or won’t listen to each other, compete for center stage within the family unit, bow out when they can’t face reality, and impose upon the space of others. It offers tremendous insight just to hear the fractured words of the scripts. To see it and feel it takes the breath away.

Two more weekends remains for this all too short run of Proof, but this talented cast has the opportunity to knock the wind out of its audience if they wrap themselves snugly in their characters turning them loose to tell their story with strength, power, warts and all.

I still want to know what the mathematical theorem is and its significance, even though that’s not what the play is really all about.