Summary and Review of Proof, a Play from David Auburn

Summary and Review of Proof, a Play from David Auburn Proof  by David Auburn premiered on Broadway in October 2000. It received national attention, earning the Drama Desk Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Tony Award for Best Play. The play is intriguing with fascinating dialogue and two characters who are well-developed and an academic, mathematical theme. It does, however, have a few downfalls. Plot Overview of Proof Catherine, the twenty-something daughter of an esteemed mathematician, has just laid her father to rest. He died after suffering from a prolonged mental illness. Robert, her father, had once been a gifted, ground-breaking professor. But as he lost his sanity, he lost his ability to coherently work with numbers. The audience quickly learns: Catherine is brilliant in her own right, but she fears that she might possess the same mental illness which ultimately incapacitated her father.Her older sister wants to take her to New York where she can be cared for, in an institution if need be.Hal (a devoted student of Roberts) searches through the professors files hoping to discover something usable so that his mentors final years wont have been a complete waste. During the course of his research, Hal discovers a pad of paper filled with profound, cutting-edge calculations. He incorrectly assumes the work was Roberts. In truth, Catherine wrote the mathematic proof. No one believes her. So now she must provide proof that the proof belongs to her. (Note the double-entendre in the title.) What Works in Proof? Proof  works very well during the father-daughter scenes. Of course, there are only a couple of these since the father character, after all, is dead. When Catherine does converse with her father, these flashbacks reveal her often conflicting desires. We learn that Catherines academic goals are thwarted by her responsibilities to her ailing father. Her creative urges are offset for her propensity for lethargy. And she worries that her so-far undiscovered genius might be a tell-tale symptom of the same affliction to which her father succumbed. David Auburns writing is at its most heartfelt when father and daughter express their love (and sometimes despair) for math. There is a poetry to their theorems. In fact, even when Roberts logic has failed him, his equations exchange rationality for a unique form of poetry: Catherine (Reading from her fathers journal.)Let X equal the quantities of all quantities of X.Let X equal the cold.Its cold in December.The months of cold equal November through February. Another strong point of the play is Catherine herself. She is a strong female character: incredibly bright, but by no means prone to flaunting her intellect. She is by far the most well-rounded of the characters (in fact, with the exception of Robert, the other characters seem bland and flat by comparison). Proof  has been embraced by colleges and high school drama departments. And with a leading character like Catherine, it is easy to understand why. A Weak Central Conflict One of the major conflicts of the play is Catherines inability to convince Hal and her sister that she actually invented the proof in her fathers notebook. For a while, the audience ​is unsure as well. After all, Catherines sanity is in question. Also, she has yet to graduate from college. And, to add one more layer of suspicion, the math is written in her fathers handwriting. But Catherine has a lot of other things on her plate. Shes dealing with grief, sibling rivalry, romantic tension, and the slow sinking feeling of losing ones mind. She isnt terribly concerned about proving that the proof is hers. She is deeply annoyed that the people closest to her fail to believe her. For the most part, she doesnt spend much time trying to prove her case. In fact, she even tosses the notepad down, saying that Hal can publish it under his name. Ultimately, because she doesnt really care about the proof, we the audience dont care too much about it either, thereby diminishing the conflict. A Poorly Conceived Romantic Lead One more downside: Hal. This character is sometimes nerdy, sometimes romantic, sometimes charming. But for the most part, hes a dweeb. Hes the most skeptical about Catherines academic abilities, yet it seems that if he wanted, he could talk to her for about five minutes and discover her mathematical skills. But he never bothers until the plays resolution. Hal never states this, but it seems that his main contention against Catherines authorship of the proof boils down to sexism. Throughout the play, he seems on the verge of shouting: You couldnt have written this proof! Youre just a girl! How could you be good at math? Sadly, theres a half-hearted love story tacked on. Or maybe its a lust story. Its hard to say. During the second half of the play, Catherines sister discovers that Hal and Catherine have been sleeping together. Their sexual relationship seems very casual, but it does kick the level of betrayal up a notch when Hal continues to doubt Catherines genius.