Edward Alderton Theatre

Proof
by David Auburn

Directed by Maggi Law

21-28 November 2009 (7 performances)

Following the death of her brilliant mathematician father Robert, Catherine struggles to come to terms with his legacy. Inheriting both his brilliance and his instability, she is torn between her sister Claire, who wants to take her back to New York, and Hal, a former student of her father's, who tests both her knowledge and her emotions. When a fabulously exciting new proof is found in the drawer upstairs, relationships fall apart as the identity of the author is called into question…

Cast
Catherine	Caroline Main (21-27th), Catherine Ellis (28th)*
Robert	Tony Donnelly
Hal	Daniel Cox
Claire	Jenny McCarthy

* Caroline Main was unavailable for the last night and so Catherine Ellis, who played the same role in the South London Theatre's production the previous week, very kindly stepped in to take the part

Crew
Stage Manager	Stephanie David
Assistant Stage Manager	Roz Betts
Set Design	Maggi Law
Set Construction	John Vinnels, Ron Andrews
Set Decoration	Maggi Law, Peter Law
Lighting & Sound Design	Rebecca Mason
Lighting Rigging	Jerry McKeon, Christine McKeon, Maggi Law, Rebecca Mason
Lighting Programming	Michael Smith
Lighting Operation	Helen West
Sound Operation	Shirley Andrews
Backstage	Ian Long

Music taken from Bonya by Tim Vine, except Hard as Love (Demo) taken from Brave by Marillion

Review

Proof of authenticity

The current season at Edward Alderton Theatre continues with David Auburn’s 2001 award-winning play, Proof, writes Steve Spencer

The play is set in Chicago where Robert, a former genius mathematician, has recently died following a period of mental illness. He ‘appears’ at the opening of the play with his daughter Catherine, a depressed college drop-out, who has stayed at home caring for her father in the last years of his life. As preparations are made for the funeral, her sister Claire returns from New York to find Catherine has renewed a tentative friendship with Hal, one of her father’s former mathematics students. When Hal discovers one of Robert’s notebooks with the proof of a mathematical theorem that was deemed impossible, he is shocked to learn that Catherine claims she wrote the proof. But did she? The handwriting in the notebook resembles her father’s. But as the mystery develops and resolves, Auburn explores the links that may exist between genius and madness and whether either or both can be inherited.

Maggi Law’s thoughtful direction certainly teases out winning performances which compel the audience to reflect on Auburn’s central questions. Caroline Main is an outstanding Catherine, constantly fearful of becoming like her father. Will she inherit on the one hand, his mathematical talents and/or on the other, his mental instability? She delivers her lines with a convincing ‘natural’ American accent (where others are sadly inconsistent) and seems totally at home in the role.

Auburn’s play is also about human relationships: developing trust and love can be just as difficult and uncertain as establishing the truth of a mathematical proof. The strong performances of her fellow actors illustrate well the fragility of Catherine’s relationships. Tony Donnelly (Robert), intensely proud of Catherine yet irritated by her decision to leave him to pursue her own studies, teeters convincingly on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Jenny Appleby is a suitably ‘unemotional’ sister who equivocates between blame and guilt despite the advantage of distance from the family home. Daniel Cox plays a much more grounded Hal, now a maths teacher in his own right, but whose future relationship with Catherine remains very much uncertain.

You do not need to be a mathematical genius to understand the play. Rather, it is about coming to terms – as Catherine does - with the notions of approximation and compromise. This production has surely achieved this end and will be another feather in the theatre’s cap.

Steve Spencer

Kentish Times | 3 December 2009

Miscellaneous