'Proof' Review: Of Minds, Brilliant and Beleaguered

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OPINION | THEATER REVIEW

‘Proof’ Review: Of Minds, Brilliant and Beleaguered This staging of the David Auburn play, about the death of a mathematician and the struggles of his daughter who may be afflicted by the same mental illness he had, stays true to its source material.

By Terry Teachout Sept. 12, 2019 2 40 pm ET Baltimore David Auburn is having an excellent year. His new stage adaptation of Saul Bellow’s “The Adventures of Augie March” opened to universal acclaim at Chicago’s Court Theatre in May. Two months later, he directed an important revival of Thornton Wilder ’s “The Skin of Our Teeth” Katie Kleiger and Jeremy Keith Hunter PHOTO: DJ COREY

for Massachusetts’ Berkshire Theatre Group. Now “Proof,” Mr. Auburn’s 2000 drama about a

young mathematician who fears for her sanity, is being presented by Baltimore’s Everyman Theatre, a regional company deserving of wider recognition. “Proof” hasn’t returned to Broadway since it won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 and wrapped up a 917-performance run there two years later, and it happens that I missed the original production, so I decided to drive down

to Baltimore and see what I’d missed. Quite a bit, as it turns out: “Proof” is a superior piece of theatrical work, and Paige Hernandez ’s finely cast staging reveals it to be timely as well.

Proof Everyman Theatre, 315 W. Fayette St., Baltimore $10-$65, 410 752 2208, closes Oct. 6

Catherine ( Katie Kleiger ), the deeply unhappy 25-year-old central character of “Proof,” dropped out of college to take care of Robert (Bruce Randolph Nelson), her father and one of the foremost mathematicians of his generation, whose

career came to an abrupt halt when he fell victim to mental illness. Now Robert is dead, Catherine is trying to figure out how to restart her own thwarted life, and Claire ( Megan Anderson ), her older sister, who has come back to Chicago for their father’s funeral, fears that Catherine may suffer from the same disease. Enter Hal ( Jeremy Keith Hunter ), one of Robert’s protégés, who is sifting through his accumulated papers and finds what may be a major piece of unpublished work—one that Robert apparently completed in secret during his illness…or did he?

What we have here, in short, is an intellectual whodunit, one that recalls Tom Stoppard ’s “Arcadia” without aspiring to Mr. Stoppard’s flashy loop-the-loopery. It’s also issue-conscious without being issue-driven, and the two issues at the heart of the action—the debilitating demands of caregiving and the question of whether women find it harder than men to win recognition for achievement in the arts and sciences—are, if possible, even more to the point now than they were two decades ago. Fortunately, Mr. Auburn, like Mr. Stoppard, embeds these larger concerns in a moving human drama, and the result is an intelligent entertainment that is well-made in the best sense of that double-edged word.

Everyman Theatre, which I first visited four years ago and to which I have since gone back as often as possible, is the kind of company that might also be described as “well-made.” It favors traditionally crafted plays and produces them in a beautifully proportioned 250seat theater located in downtown Baltimore that Katie Kleiger, Megan Anderson and Jeremy Keith Hunter PHOTO: DJ COREY

houses a resident ensemble of actors and designers. Three of the four members of the cast of

“Proof” are members of this ensemble, as are Ms. Hernandez and Daniel Ettinger, the set designer, who has placed the action of the play in an old, rundown Chicago house whose translucent walls hint at the subtleties of the characters’ relationships. The look and feel of the production are thus satisfyingly solid—Ms. Kleiger and Ms. Anderson give the impression of being sisters, not actors—in a way to which only a permanent ensemble can aspire. As for Ms. Kleiger, you feel every bit of her raw desperation, as well as the unexpected sense of hope with which she is suddenly filled when she senses that Hal is attracted to her.

Part of what is so impressive about this staging, and about Everyman Theatre more generally, is its lack of self-regarding showiness. Everyone is clearly committed to presenting Mr. Auburn’s play in a way that is scrupulously faithful to his intentions: This is David Auburn’s “Proof,” not Paige Hernandez’s “Proof.” At the same time, there is nothing stiff or impersonal about the production—it draws you in as soon as the lights go down, and doesn’t release you until the very last beat of the script.

In my theater-going travels throughout America, I find myself drawn time and again to troupes that do these same kinds of things well. Boston’s Lyric Stage Company, Chicago’s Writers Theatre, Florida Repertory Theatre, Massachusetts’ Barrington Stage, New Hampshire’s Peterborough Players, the Shakespeare Theatre of New Katie Kleiger and Bruce Randolph Nelson PHOTO: DJ COREY

Jersey, New York’s Irish Repertory Theatre and Mint

Theater, Pennsylvania’s People’s Light: These are some of the small-to-medium-size theater companies whose taste I’ve come to trust sight unseen. With this revival of “Proof,” Everyman Theatre joins their ranks. It’s the kind of show that’s worth taking a long trip to see.

—Mr. Teachout, the Journal’s drama critic, is the author of “Satchmo at the Waldorf.” Write to him at tteachout@wsj.com.

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