REVIEW: Highly Lauded Proof Is Everything It Was Meant To Be On Shadowland Stages
Through 10/26 @ Shadowland Stages, Ellenville
Photos by Jeremy Johnson
“Éilis Cahill barely leaves the stage and it is a really good thing because she embodies this production’s eloquence.”
Proof by David Auburn feels like the quintessential “well-made play.” Every time I encounter it, I am sucked back into its twisty pleasures. There is a structural surprise, a knotty look at family legacy and most importantly four very attractive yet quite flawed characters. They are all charming headaches that could drive you crazy either with love or aggravation. Shadowland Stages has a cast who are more than up to the challenge.
The play won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play. It tells the story about Catherine (Éilis Cahill) who has been caring for her brilliant, mentally ill math professor father Robert (Steve Brady) and what happens with his passing. Her controlling sister Claire (Carolyn Holding) arrives for the funeral but also has an agenda for Catherine’s future. There is also a mentee of her father’s, Hal (Rudy Galvan) who is searching Robert’s office for remnants of his genius. When he finds a treasured proof on prime numbers, questions of its authorship arise reflecting how much Catherine has inherited from her father’s multifaceted brain.
Shadowland Stages Artistic Director Brendan Burke has directed this production, co-designed the terrific, specific set with company Technical Director Peter Johnson and cast this great play with an exceptionally strong cast. Jeremy Johnson did the lighting design, Dean Mahoney designed the jarring, clanking, machinist sound plot.
Carolyn Holding as Claire is the quintessential New Yorker who appreciates her neighborhood coffee roaster and can be counted on to find the best mental health help for her beloved sister. She would be great taking charge of your weekend plans, but it’s a scarier proposition to make her your health proxy. Holding’s voice and speech are masterful, she can gain chuckles from the timbre of her responses.
Shadowland vet Steve Brady is warmly cantankerous and demanding as Robert. He’s very good at drawing you in and pulling the rug out from under you. Some of Catherine’s doubts about her mental stability could be attributed to being in close contact and caring for this endlessly mercurial father.
Rudy Galvan can push for laughs ever so slightly, but it’s appreciated in this dense evening. His dichotomy of being appropriate boyfriend material, as well as being joyfully proud and nervous of his thesis in the flashback scene shows an actor who is going to make the absolute most out of every moment offered.
Éilis Cahill is probably the best Catherine I’ve ever seen. She is the audience’s untrustworthy guide through the story and we can go through all of the love, grief, joy, doubt and anger imaginable with this character because of this great actor. Éilis Cahill barely leaves the stage and it is a really good thing because she embodies this production’s eloquence.
Proof plays through 10/26 at Shadowland Stages. Tickets: www.shadowlandstages.org
