Auburn is modest, but he can't hide his excitement at this sudden change in his situation. Six months ago, Auburn, AB'91, was a relative unknown. His last play, Skyscraper, lasted only one month at an Off-Broadway house in 1997, but his success with Proof has introduced him to a whole new level of exposure. We got really lucky. Dan Sullivan is probably the best director in America.
Proof is a heartbreaking drama hiding behind a thin gauze of mathematical theory.
Mary Louise Parker plays Catherine, a sarcastic, insecure math prodigy who gave up undergraduate life at Northwestern to care for her mentally ill father, a revered University of Chicago mathematician. The play opens on the eve of her 25th birthday, just after her father has died and the night before the funeral. The centerpiece of the play is Catherine's denial that she inherited her father's brilliance and her fear that she will be overcome by the mental illness that he began to exhibit in his twenties. But where Stoppard and Frayn use drama to frame intellectual debate, Auburn does the opposite. I've been surprised by the reaction.