A LONG STANDING OVATION
Proves the excellence of “PROOF”

By Iride Aparicio

 Photo Credit: Kevin Berne

 
  Robert (L Peter Callender) celebrates
 Catherine’s  (Michelle Beck) birthday 

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA – It all starts simply. With  Catherine (MICHELLE BECK)  curled on the pillows of  a sofa  located on her house’s porch.  She is awakened by the entrance of  her  father, Robert (L. PETER CALLENDER) carrying a champagne bottle in his hand,  who in  his loving words and gentle manner, let us see his love for her as he reminds her that  today, September 4th,  is her 25th birthday and invites her after drinking the champagne to celebrate the event at a restaurant

This bond, between father an daughter, in the fertile imagination  of American Playwright DAVID AUBORN, created “PROOF.” a play that premiere Off-Broadway in May 2000 and in 2001 won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and a Tony Award for Best Play.

 In mathematics, when a person presents a theorem that is a theoretical proposition, statement, or formula embodying something, it has to be proved from other propositions or formulas. Acceptance by other mathematicians is the precise logic embodied in the statement of the "Proof".

In this family-centered play,  being produced  by THEATRE WORKS Directed by LESLIE MARTINSON and acted by masterful performers, the brilliant mathematician is Robert,  now dead, who was a Math professor at the University of Chicago

L-R Catherine (BECK) and Hal (LANCE GARDNE

Because he had just died, after a long mental illness,  Catherine, his younger daughter, who took care of him for all  those years and is also a mathematician, is beginning to experience  things that  is making her wonder is mental illness is hereditary.

The play action revolves around the family. The action centers on Catherine,  the mathematician, who after his father demise, is going through all his father’s notebooks trying to find the “proof” that his father was trying to find and that he knew would give him fame but recognition. The girl is frustrated to see that his father's notes, that he wrote at the end, are nothing by scribbles and nonsense. The notes prove to her that his father's mathematical brain had stopped functioning properly.

The other member of the family is  Claire (ASHLEY BRYANT) her older sister,  who while she was attending college and taking care of  their father in Chicago,  was working  in New York, to keep the family afloat, but who  now, after their father’s death, is in Chicago. She came to take Catherine (who she suspects is mentally ill too)  to live with her in New York, and  to sell his father’s house where her sister  lives. .

The last character in this family's play is Hal, (LANCE GARDNER) A young  mathematician, at the University, who was a former student of Robert, and who like Catherine is searching  for his notebooks trying to find  “The Proof.”  The process is tense, and, at times, makes the audience doubt Catherine’s sanity.  But at the end of the play,  when the “The Proof” is found, it is a surprise to all, including Claire and Hal. And among the things that the "Proof" proves, is  that a well-written drama, makes an entertaining play in the hands of four masterful actors a great director.

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L-R Claire (ASHLEY BRYANT) and Catherine (BECK)

'Proof will play at the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts until November 1. For Tickets and information call (650) 463-l960 of visit theatreworks. org.