Proof is an intelligent play, focused on prime number theory and dappled with geek humor. But it is accessible to all, because at it’s heart, the play is about relationships.
Anyone who has been doubted when they have not been in the wrong can relate to the main character, Catherine, whose mathematical genius has been inherited from — but overshadowed by — her brilliant but sadly insane father.
Ironically, he had “invented the mathematical technique for studying rational behavior,” says his awed protégé, Hal.
The play opens in the wee hours of Catherine’s 25th birthday. She has devoted the last five years of her life to caring for her father, giving up her own fledgeling career in higher math to attend to him.
Catherine glumly shares a bottle of “the worst champagne I have ever tasted” with the spirit of her father: The day marks not only her birthday, but his funeral.
She worries for her sanity, as she has now reached the age her father was when his mental functions began their decline.
She unhappily awaits the arrival of her sister, who has supported them financially but never emotionally through the years of her father’s illness. In addition, she must defend her father’s legacy: a collection of 106 notebooks filled with gibberish he wrote in his senile years.
Hal is certain something of value lies buried in the books, although Catherine warns him otherwise. Still, he pesters her about cataloging the books.
The notebooks do hold one secret: Unknown to everyone, in her spare time Catherine has written an amazing proof, “A mathematical theorem about prime numbers,” explains Hal to Catherine’s sister Claire.
Claire, who admits she has only “one-thousandth of my father’s ability,” really isn’t interested in theoretical math. She believes in jojoba conditioners, vegetarian chili and a good black dress. What she doesn’t believe in is her sister.
She question’s Catherine’s sanity, believing no person in their right mind would have derailed their own career to care for their parent.
Neither she nor Hal believe Catherine could have written the proof, given her limited schooling.
“You only have a few months of math from Northwestern!” Hal tells her.
“I had twenty years of living with my father,” she coldly replies. Twenty good years, before his mind snapped and she “had to feed him and bathe him.”
Proof is as much about challenging the perceived notions others have about us as it is math and madness.
Hal tells Catherine “If I could come up with one tenth the stuff your dad did, I could write my ticket to any math department at any university in the country.” How, then, can he believe she has developed something in her spare time that he, with a university staff around him, cannot?
She reminds him that the person who developed Germaine primes in the 18th century was a woman, who had to work clandestinely as she was denied formal schooling because of her gender.
The only one who relished Catherine’s ability was her father.
“You knew what a prime number was before you could read,” he tells her in the opening scene.
He causes her to recall just how many hours she has sat idle since his demise —and recognize the number is “the smallest number expressible as the sum of two sets of two cubes.”
“See, even your depression is mathematical,” her father’s ghost informs her.
PROOF IS A difficult play in that the relationships it describes are painful. The characters are anything but supportive of each other.
Her father’s passing has left Catherine with a void known by any caregiver whose charge no longer needs them, any person who’s lost their sense of self when they’ve lost a job. The sudden hole in one’s life can’t just be filled instantly, as Catherine’s sister would like.
Claire wants Catherine to come to New York. She informs her she is selling the house.
“When is this happening?” Catherine asks. “Friday,” Claire replies. It turns out her sister has been scouting mental hospitals as well as apartments for her sister.
The play — and proof of authorship of the mathematical notebook — eventually resolves itself, but in the process relationships are broken.
That Catherine chooses, at the end, to give them another try is testimony to her resiliency, and hope.
Newcomer Julie Benteman plays the role of Claire, while Iola High School senior Eileen Chase takes on the main role. Allen County Community College chemistry instructor Todd Francis plays Hal, and Keith Goering is the mad professor.
Proof opens Saturday at the Iola Community Theater, with your choice of desert accompanying your ticket.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m., chocolate mousse cheesecake, carrot cake and sugar-free apple pie are served at seven, and the curtain rises at 7:30. A Sunday matinee is at 1 p.m.
The play runs Feb. 21, 22, 27 and 28. Tickets are available at Sophisticated Rose.
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