Proof
Written by David Auburn
Directed by Charles Newell
at Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis (map)
thru April 14 | tickets: $40-$55 | more info
Check for half-price tickets
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A resonant exploration of the curse and gift of beautiful minds
Court Theatre presents
Proof
Review by Catey Sullivan
Mathematics and madness – on the surface, these are the entwined themes running through David Auburn’s Proof, now getting a truly wonderful revival at the Court Theatre. Directed by Charles Newell, Proof is a haunting story of unbreakable family connections and mathematical proofs so complex they approach the realms of poetry. But the spare, vivid piece is about so much more than numbers and misfiring neurons. Starring a luminous Chaon Cross as the brilliant daughter of a brilliant mathematician, Proof probes the curse and the gift of extraordinary genetics, the merciless demands of a field where anyone on the down side of 23 is considered a has-been and the tentative, fragile blooming of love among emotional ruins.
At lights up we meet Catherine (Cross), swallowed up on oversize sweatpants and a baggy sweater, conversing with her father Robert on the front porch of the family’s home. He’s been ill for years, a mathematician who revolutionized the field twice while still in his 20s and then continued on to an academic career marked by worshipful students. But he’s been brought down by demons of the mind, a victim of some variant of psychosis that left him unable to work, a virtual shut-in who spends his days endlessly scribbling in note books, certain that the integers of the Dewey Decimal System are coded messages attempting to impart all-important secrets to him.
Catherine has cut short her own dreams, dropping out of school to care for her father, making endless trips to the library, feeding and bathing him and standing as a fiercely protective force determined to prevent her phenomenal father from being relegated to the dubious care of a nursing home or a mental health facility. But as a young woman who inherited her father’s brilliant mind, she’s tormented by the notion that perhaps she’ll go crazy too. Stuck between that panic-inducing fear and a marrow-deep depression of her own, Catherine flits between moments of manic, overwhelming anxiety and the sort of crippling malaise that makes it almost impossible to get up in the morning.
Enter Catherine’s well-meaning, thoroughly insufferable sister Claire (Megan Kohl) and Hal (Erik Hellman) an earnestly obsessive grad student intent on poring through her father’s notebooks in hopes of finding some lasting legacy, one final glimmer of the professor’s gifted mind. And with that potent quartet of characters, Auburn takes off with a text that merges the taut tension of a thriller with a rich, compelling exploration of the power – destructive and transcendent – of family.
 
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Newell has pared the production down to its emotional core; Martin Andrew’s set barely suggests the Hyde Park house where Catherine and her father live – it’s all right angles and emptiness, a porch swing and a chair indicating (respectively) the outside and the inside of the home. That’s a fittingly minimalist canvas for the subtly powerhouse performances that mark Proof.
As Catherine, Cross turns in a performance that is as intensely physical as it is emotionally authentic. Her movement is as telling as her dialogue, whether she’s balled up on a fetal position on the ground or angrily manhandling that darn chair. It’s a performance of powerful kineticism balanced by radiant emotion. As Catherine’s father Robert, Kevin Gudahl is also tremendously effective, alternately fierce and gentle as a man who see-saws between knowing exactly what he’s lost and being lost in his own delusions. Hellman’s grad student has just enough ambiguity to make you wonder whether his concern for his own career equals (or surpasses) his concern over academic legacies and Catherine’s well-being. And then there’s Kohl in the relatively thankless role of obnoxious Claire, a woman who knows she will never be as smart as her sister and whose preoccupation with superficial details – hair conditioner, vegetarian chili, cute apartments – reveal a mind congenitally incapable of understanding the depths and torments embedded in her sister’s own brain.
More than a decade since its premiere, Proof shows no signs of aging. It beautifully captures the curse and the gift of beautiful minds.
Rating: ★★★½
Proof continues through April 14th at Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis (map), with performances Wednesday/Thursday at 7:30pm, Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 3pm and 8pm, Sundays 2:30pm and 7:30pm. Tickets are $40-$55, and are available by phone (773-753-4472) or online through UChicago.edu (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at ProofInHydePark.com.
Photos by Michael Brosilow
artists
cast
Chaon Cross (Catherine), Kevin Gudahl (Robert), Erik Hellman (Hal), Megan Kohl (Claire)
behind the scenes
Charles Newell (director), Martin Andrew (set design); Rachel Laritz (costumes), Keith Parham (lighting), Andre Pluess (sound design), John Boller (dramaturg), Sara Gammage (production stage manager), Beth Spencer (stage manager), Michael Brosilow (photos)
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