[NEohioPAL] Review of Proof: Fran Heller and Jewish News

[Martin Friedman]

Proof’ proves perfect in Lakeland production
BY Fran Heller

 
  
Proof 
Posted: Wednesday, September 26, 2012 8:00 pm 
Fran Heller | 0 comments  
When a perfect play meets a flawless production, the result is theatrical nirvana. Such a play is David Auburn’s “Proof, “which bagged the 2001 Tony for best play and the Pulitzer, and rightfully so. Part mystery, part 
ghost story, part domestic drama, part psychological exploration of 
mental illness, part mathematics, “Proof” is everything a great play 
should be. 
No less exhilarating is the very fine production at 
Lakeland Civic Theatre, under the passion-fueled direction of Martin 
Friedman, artistic director at Lakeland, and a quartet of sublime 
performances every inch as compelling as the 2000 Broadway show I saw.
Catherine (Elizabeth Conway) lives with her father, 
Robert (Mitchell Fields) a math professor at the University of Chicago. 
The play opens on the eve of Catherine’s 25th birthday.
Robert is brilliant, but unstable; Catherine has 
taken care of him for years. As she awaits the arrival of her older 
sister, Claire, (Laurel Hoffman) she is joined by her father, who has 
remembered her birthday with a bottle of champagne.
The father, it turns out, is already dead (a ghost or a product of Catherine’s imagination) and his funeral is the next day, 
ergo the reason for Claire’s imminent arrival. It’s an audacious conceit that works.
Catherine has inherited Robert’s prodigious gift for 
numbers and some of his instability, and now fears she will go mad like 
her father.
Hal, (Aaron Elersich) a math geek and Robert’s former doctoral student, is going through Robert’s notebooks, hoping to find a kernel of his mentor’s genius. Eventually, Catherine entrusts him with 
another hidden notebook from her father’s desk, which Hal quickly 
recognizes as a mathematical proof of major import.
The non-linear play lurches forward and backward in 
time, through flashback and imaginary situations, revealing things 
incrementally, like clues in a mystery. The shocker comes at the end of 
the first act, with a startling revelation about the secret notebook in 
question. Instead of a whodunit, it’s a “whowroteit.”
Keith Nagy’s setting of the back porch of a house in 
Chicago has just the right touch of ramshackle. Nagy bathes the family 
domicile in dappled evening light and sun-kissed daylight, to indicate 
scene shifts that fluctuate between morning and night.
Conway gives the performance of a lifetime as the 
depressed, insecure and angry, albeit loving and devoted daughter, 
Catherine, who has put her own life and future on hold to care for her 
father. Her body language speaks volumes. With thumbs firmly hooked in 
her pockets, gangly slouch, legs in nervous perpetual motion, and 
ever-changing moods, Conway’s stunning portrayal invites a rich 
comparison to Mary-Louise Parker, who originated the role on Broadway.
Veteran Jewish actor Fields triumphs as Robert, a 
mathematician who did his best work by age 22, before his long decline 
into mental illness that began in his mid-20s. With a poignant 
naturalism that is gripping to watch, Fields and Conway capture the 
close, co-dependent relationship between the fiercely protective 
daughter and needy father.
The most painful and heartbreaking scene occurs when 
Catherine, who has returned to school during her father’s remission, 
comes home to find him sitting on the patio in sub- freezing weather, 
feverishly excited about working again.
Fields is shattering in depicting Robert’s mental 
breakdown. At first, he is maniacally giddy with happiness like a child, but he soon unravels in a fit of rage, followed by helpless terror and 
tearful despair when he realizes that what he has written is total 
gibberish.
The two sisters illuminate the terrible toll mental illness takes on families.
Jewish actor Hoffman triumphs as the controlling, 
well-meaning Claire, who wants to take her fragile sib to New York to 
live with her. Claire and Catherine lock horns, baring mutual anger and 
long-held resentments over the care of their father. While Catherine 
bore the brunt of the caretaking, Claire paid all the bills.
Despite its serious subject matter, humor peppers the play. Hoffman is a riot as a hung-over, disheveled Claire, who tried to drink all the physicists under the table at the reception following the funeral the previous night.
A nerdy and tentative Aaron Elersich is perfect as 
Hal, who worships Robert and is attracted to his daughter. The scene 
following the funeral in which a shyly flirtatious Catherine connects 
with the equally awkward Hal is sweet without ever being cloying.
Hal is also sexist in his belief that math is a field for young men only. Catherine debunks the notion, citing the real life 
Sophie Germain, a young French woman in 1776, who was self -taught and 
under a man’s name wrote brilliant proofs that were recognized as 
revolutionary in the field.
The production is a riveting example of ensemble 
acting, in which each actor is totally in sync with the other. Even in 
silence, they react with their eyes and emotions.
Elegance is the word one of the characters uses in 
the play to describe a mathematical proof. The same term applies to this very moving production.
WHAT: “Proof”
WHERE: Lakeland Civic Theatre, Lakeland Community College, 7700 Clocktower Drive, Kirtland
WHEN: Through Sunday, Oct. 7
TICKETS & INFO: For tickets, 440-525-7526 For info, call 440-525-7034, or e-mail: martinfriedman98 at yahoo.com
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