Written by David Auburn, Proof has an absolutely extraordinary first act. It brilliantly works the element of surprise – which means I can’t tell you very much.
Suffice to say, it’s set on the porch of the home of a family of mathematicians. The University of Chicago is perhaps just over the fence. Robert has produced works of genius across multiple fields of mathematics. But then he is attacked by mental illness. His daughter Catherine, a potential genius herself, becomes his prime carer. The job has clearly taken its toll.
The opening of my review implies the second act doesn’t compare to the first, but if that’s a criticism, it’s akin to suggesting that a 24 carat stone is worthless junk besides the Hope Diamond.
If I was in charge of marketing this play to a new audience, I might suggest it’s A Beautiful Mind meets The Big Bang Theory (which explains why I’m not in marketing.) It’s probably enough to point out that, in 2001, Proof won both the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize.
The title tells us it’s about the search for certitude, but it’s ultimately not the mathematical certitude we might expect. In fact, there’s very little maths in the play at all. Except for the fact it’s about prime numbers, we never really know the subject matter of the ostensible titular proof. And the play doesn’t manifestly use maths as some kind of metaphor (as, for example, the Uncertainty Principle is used in Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen.) This absence of maths is partly structural; with the four characters that Auburn posits, there’s really no one who is the complete innocent who could stand in for an ignorant audience and have the maths explained to them. And the genius of the maths can’t really be shown (unlike Shaffer’s Amadeus, in which the music can simply be played, or Edson’s W;t, in which the poems are recited.)
So (no doubt to the great relief of many) there’s not much maths.
Instead we get a family drama of genuine heart and humour.
But the Proof is in the performance. Auburn has set a tough task: characters of top-class intellect, characters suffering mental illness (or maybe they don’t…)
Director Adam Dunn’s cast produces some fascinating work, the highlight of which is the emotional presence of the actors. Occasionally performances would gain from a greater focus on vocal technique – but we’re gifted an engaging night of theatre.
Kate Wooden as Catherine displays an exciting range, from sharp wit to weary confusion to raw vulnerability. As her father, Robert, Justin Knights is pathos-inducing. As Hal, a young academic interested in both the maths and Catherine, Johnny Nguyen is so likeably goofy as to make us suitably suspicious – but the scenes of romantic intimacy between he and Catherine are played with a truthfulness that is disarming. Claire, Catherine’s older sister, is intimidated by the genes of genius that flow through her family and guilty for her absence during her father’s illness, and Beth Williams gives a splendid performance of that great retreat, that soul-shrinking pretence of control and practicality with which we hide from Life’s most daunting mysteries.
Paul Gilchrist
Proof by David Auburn
Presented by Sydney Acting Studio
Until June 21 at Redfern Acting Studio
Image supplied
Theatre Red 