If putting together the production of “Proof” at the Odyssey Theatre was an actual mathematical proof, then the logic would be very difficult to follow.
The axiom for the proof would obviously be David Auburn’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning script. However, words on a page can only do so much before actors, directors and designers must bring those words to life. Unfortunately for Auburn, this company fails to suitably enliven his acclaimed script.
Set in Chicago’s Southside, the play opens at midnight on Catherine’s 25th birthday. She sits on her back porch, talking to her father, a brilliant but insane mathematician. However, at the end of the opening scene, the audience learns that Catherine’s father has been dead for a week, which brings her own sanity into question.
As the play progresses, Catherine must deal with the return of her sister, Claire, and the presence her father’s former student, Hal, who comes to the house to study her father’s old notebooks and to flirt with Catherine. She must also confront the wavering balance between her own genius and mental state as she fears becoming like her father.
Abigail Rose Solomon plays Catherine, and, at first, Solomon seems to have a grip on her character’s unstable relationship with insanity. And aside from the fact that she looks older than 25, she might be a suitable Catherine. However, as the action continues, Solomon delivers a canned version of the character, with no emotional variability.
Instead of reacting to the actors around her, she spouts out her lines and executes her blocking as if someone is telling her what to do in the moment, and she completely lacks instinct as a character. Although she may be trying to act crazy with her sharp and unmotivated actions, she stumbles over her lines of dialogue, showing that the actor, not the character, is making the mistakes.
Ariana Johns’ performance as Claire, Catherine’s older sister who comes home from New York for their father’s funeral, is forgettable and only reinforces the little dimension that the character has in the first place.
She does have one hopeful moment when Claire enters hungover the morning after her father’s funeral.
And while Johns’ initial reaction to Catherine’s cheery “good morning” merits a small chuckle from the audience, she seems to forget her character’s hangover and immediately retreats to her own bland version of the character.
Although the play primarily focuses on the relationship between the sisters, the male actors prove more captivating than their female counterparts.
Micah Freedman’s character, Hal, the young professor who ultimately falls for Catherine, could have passed in looks and demeanor for any teaching assistant at UCLA. His exuding awkwardness permeated his character so well that I started to wonder if teaching assistants lead secret acting lives.
Greg Mullavey’s performance as the father was equally appealing. Mullavey balanced moments of sanity, insanity, cleverness, stupidity, and even life and death. His performance brings impeccable lucidity to the relationships he holds in his life as a certifiably insane man.
The set design of the play was functional and attractive for the show’s purposes, and when the door on the back porch opened to the house, the interior of the house was properly decorated.
However, considering the action did not change location for the entire show, the transitions between scenes annoyingly interrupted the action.
There was a full blackout at the end of almost every scene, and as soon as the last line of a particular scene was said, the lights would extinguish, cutting off any time for the actors to provide a reaction of an emotional closing.
With the above evidence, this production ultimately proves that a good script does not equal good theater.
““ Suzy Evans
E-mail Evans at sevans@media.ucla.edu.