"Proof," the second play of the season for PlayMakers Repertory Company, which runs today through Dec. 22, is a treatise on this perplexing and often destructive reality.
Written by U.S. playwright David Auburn, "Proof" makes its debut run in the Triangle area while still basking in the afterglow of winning last year's Tony Award for Best Play and the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
"('Proof') is about the borderline between genius and madness and creativity and insanity," said David Hammond, artistic director of PlayMakers. "(Auburn) is the best new playwright in the last decade," he said.
Hammond said "Proof" is a play that combines both strong writing and a bitingly comical tilt. "It's full of humor and wit while also being incredibly touching."
Humor could be the best device to deal with the play's complex subject matter, which includes schizophrenia, death and familial turmoil. Directed by PlayMakers resident director and UNC alumnus Ted Shaffner, "Proof" follows Catherine, the daughter of a brilliant but mentally unstable mathematician whose death brings forth questions of her own sanity and wasted academic promise.
Though "Proof" takes an intensive look at some of the diseases that plague academia, its message runs deeper than logarithms and ivory towers.
"It's a play about being a human being," said Pam O'Connor, director of media relations for Playmakers. "And the backdrop is a man who happens to be a mathematician and his daughter, who must sort through a bag of inheritance."
"Anybody on campus will love this play -- it's about students and teachers," Hammond said. "('Proof') makes fun of the politics of academia and finds the humanity in all of it."
The play makes its first run at 8 p.m. today. For more ticket prices and times call 962-PLAY or visit the PlayMakers Web site at http://www.
