{"id":1094,"date":"2023-08-17T19:14:27","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T19:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/remake\/?p=1094"},"modified":"2023-08-25T14:56:41","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T14:56:41","slug":"proof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/remake\/proof\/","title":{"rendered":"Proof"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overflow=”visible” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]\n

Proof<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reviewed by Steven Leigh Morris<\/strong>
\nDig Deep Theatre\/Olive Branch Theatricals at The Main<\/em><\/strong>
\nThrough August 20<\/strong><\/p>\n

RECOMMENDED<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

David Auburn\u2019s 2000 drama,\u00a0Proof<\/em>, (originally produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club) received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play in what must have been a very slow year. New plays that hurtle around the regional theaters come in trends, and among the favored topics of the early \u2018naughts were plays about math and science, and mathematicians and scientists \u2014 in response, perhaps, to plays about family dysfunction, an earlier trend.<\/p>\n

(The current trend would be works, play after play, glomming onto identity politics and social justice. It\u2019s been said that this has contributed to the death spiral of regional theaters, but that\u2019s probably an over-statement.)<\/p>\n

Proof\u00a0<\/em>is a perfectly good play that provided a potent vehicle for Mary Louise-Parker in the U.S., and Gwyneth Paltrow in the UK. It is, however, something of a pretender \u2014 pretending to be about something it\u2019s not: mathematics.<\/p>\n

The pretense stems from a central character named Robert (Daniel T. McCann), who\u00a0was\/is<\/em>\u00a0a quasi-genius mathematician at the University of Chicago. He\u00a0was<\/em>, because he\u2019s dead. He\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>because he shows up as a phantom and in a flashback. At issue is a mathematical proof he is purported to have written, late in life. This is odd because mathematical brilliance peaks when people are in their mid-20s, and this proof would have been created by Robert decades later. The other conundrum is the mental instability that accompanies such genius, particularly after the genius-factor evaporates with age, and all that\u2019s left in its wake is a crazy person.<\/p>\n

Enter Robert\u2019s daughter, Catherine (Shawnee Badger), in her late 20s, living with her dad until his recent death. Catherine has a penchant for mathematics and, like her father, a tendency towards moody, anti-social eccentricity and emotional fragility. In many ways, this is a play about legacy \u2014 who is it that wrote the extraordinary mathematical equation found in one of Robert\u2019s notebooks? After suggesting at first that it was Robert in late life, the play then teases out threads of evidence that it could, credibly, have been Catherine, as she tries to assert. Yet nobody, from Catherine\u2019s sister Claire (Mabel Maultsby), visiting from New York to sell the family home out from under Catherine, to Robert\u2019s former student Hal (Vincent Doud), also Catherine\u2019s eventual lover, can believe that Catherine has the temperament or the intelligence to have come up with such a proof.<\/p>\n

Is this because mathematics is a man\u2019s game?<\/p>\n

Set on a back porch near Chicago (set design by Phil and Nancy Lantis),\u00a0Proof<\/em>\u00a0is a family drama centered on Catherine and her quest to be taken seriously in a world of disbelievers, who include an intimate partner. And therein lies its emotional power. Very simply: The lost child is egregiously underestimated. Does this make it a great play? Not even close. It\u2019s a soap opera passing itself off as a work of mathematics, because of a few lines that reference how a mathematical proof is constructed. However, it\u2019s a long,\u00a0long<\/em>\u00a0way from Tom Stoppard\u2019s\u00a0Arcadia<\/em>, a play that connects philosophy to human relations.<\/p>\n

Still, because of this ensemble and James Castle Stevens\u2019s direction, I was leaning forward in my seat the whole time. This inaugural effort of Dig Deep Theatre is extremely encouraging. Badger forges a Catherine who\u2019s brittle and endearing in a fortress of her own making. The walls of that fortress crumble a bit in her romance with Hal, a connection fortified by Doud\u2019s goofy sensitivity. As Catherine\u2019s imperious sister, Claire, Maultsby delivers a know-it-all who\u2019s marbled with insecurity \u2014 sort of like a torpedo that\u2019s slightly off-course, knows it, and can\u2019t do much about it. And McCann\u2019s patriarch Robert is both grounded and lost, almost in the same breath.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s hoping this company will return with more.<\/p>\n

Dig Deep Theatre\/Olive Branch Theatricals at The Main, 24266 Main St., Santa Clarita; Fri.-Sat., 8 pm; Sat-Sun., 2 pm; thru Aug. 20.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>https:\/\/shorturl.at\/lotw8<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0Running time: Two hours and 10 minutes with an intermission.<\/em><\/strong>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overflow=”visible” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][image_with_animation image_url=”902″ image_size=”full” animation_type=”entrance” animation=”None” animation_movement_type=”transform_y” hover_animation=”none” alignment=”” border_radius=”none” box_shadow=”none” image_loading=”default” max_width=”100%” max_width_mobile=”default”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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