An unfortunate and unfair hazard, inevitably faced by producers and actors engaged in high-profile revivals of well-remembered hits of not-too-distant memory: At least some audience members are likely to sit there, as the curtain rises, and suddenly recall everything they loved about the show the first time. Especially when the item in question was a Pulitzer- and Tony-winning hit, and when the four roles were so well played—each and every one of them—that the entire cast was Tony-nominated.
David Auburn’s Proof begins Ayo Edebiri sits on the backyard-porch set of a run-down house in Chicago, dazed and disturbed and not quite right, and you might well think—oh yes, Mary-Louise Parker, and wasn’t she perfect in the role! How is an actor, even an Emmy-winning favorite from The Bear, to possibly compete?
It doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes, though, (a) to remember how good the original Proof was; (b) to marvel about how it seems somehow new, even if you did see the original four times; and (c) to realize within the first scene that the play actually seems better, while fighting not to miss a word or thought propelled across the footlights. Proof was wonderful back in 2000, yes, in the original production at Manhattan Theatre Club and as it continued through a two-year run at the Walter Kerr. But why is it decidedly more gripping than before?
Start with playwright Auburn. Proof was remarkable for a 30-year-old out of the Juilliard playwriting program. If subsequent work has proved less than intriguing, so be it. His two post-Proof Main Stem appearances have been The Columnist, a 2012 effort in which John Lithgow, as syndicated columnist Joseph Alsop, was blackmailed by the Russians over a dalliance with a Moscow call boy; and Summer, 1976, a 2023 drama of which I have only a hazy memory of Jessica Hecht and Laura Linney talking and talking. But what matter career vicissitudes when you have something so imperishably grand as Proof on your personal bookshelf?
[Read Roma Torre’s ★★★★★ review here.]
The play parades as a drama about math, mathematicians, and elusive formulas that can shake up the world—the academic world, at least—if only some brilliant mind can find the key. In truth, though, the play centers on those key words: the “brilliant mind” and what happens when the once-brilliant mind is pushed into oblivion. In 2000, it was a question of the great thinker losing his mind. What makes this new production at the Booth even more powerful than before is today’s audience—that is, our collective knowledge and experience with depression, dementia, and despair. This was always there in the text, yes, but it now comes across with added urgency and personal relevance. The majority of today’s audience, of course, will be seeing Proof for the first time. For them, the experience will be that of attending a vibrant and provocative new play.
This is typified by Edebiri as Catherine, the daughter and what we nowadays would describe as caretaker of world-renowned mathematician Robert (Don Cheadle). As the play opens, Robert is obviously grasping for sanity, while Catherine has clearly sacrificed her life and education to support her father. But what is obvious, it turns out, is not reality; high among Auburn’s accomplishments within the play is a brief line of dialogue, 15 minutes in, that abruptly changes everything the audience thinks they’ve learned thus far; and a second three-word curtain line at the end of the act, which again changes the reality and more or less wallops us into astonishment at intermission.
There’s an art to writing a great curtain line, and the proof is in—well, in Proof.
Edebiri is magical, stubbornly clinging to reality despite an ever-present concern that she has begun to experience traits of Robert’s mental disintegration. The performance is a marvel of intelligence and caring, with moments of despair brightened by an irrepressible humor. (Rest assured, Auburn’s drama about math and depression is nevertheless upbeat and funny!) Catherine’s downward spiral is countered by Hal (Jin Ha), a University of Chicago math geek searching through the jumbled papers of Robert (his former doctoral advisor) on a quest to find a hidden masterpiece. Are his motives true, or false? Is he looking to honor his professor or, perhaps, steal his work? And as we sit there, we can only wonder—in the plainest of terms—if will he kiss shy Cinderella and uncover the bright warmth waiting to burst through.
Dramaturgical note: I wouldn’t say that Auburn modeled his work on The Glass Menagerie, but here we have a dominant parent overshadowing the lives of the children. One of them breaks away to find their own life; the other sits damaged, surrounded by a crystal menagerie not of glass but of numbers. Then comes the Gentleman Caller. Will he, or won’t he, or can he rescue the drowning girl?
Edebiri is well supported by the brightly engaging Ha (from the recent Here We Are and memorable as the title character in the 2017 revival of M. Butterfly). Kara Young, who seems to pick up Tony nominations wherever she goes—winning for Purpose and Purlie Victorious—is her usual stellar self as the out-of-town sister, Claire. She makes the most of Claire’s big scenes, attempting to bulldoze her emotionally vulnerable sister. Most remarkable, though, is her ability—despite her high-voltage star quality—to vanish into the background when the play demands. (Young’s presence in this small role is explained by her stepping in as a replacement during rehearsals. While it is to be hoped that Proof is able to extend past its scheduled three-month engagement and that Edebiri will be available to do so, the producers need not look far for an exciting replacement.) As for Cheadle, he does fine—although opposite Edebiri, Ha, and Young, “fine” leaves you a distant fourth. Little matter, as this production plays exceptionally well.
Director Thomas Kail does what might be his best work since Hamilton, drawing impressive work not only from the cast but from his production team (Teresa L. Williams on sets, Dede Ayite on costumes, Amanda Zieve on lights, and Kris Bowers on music). Make special note of the scene changes, with tubes of light running up along the outlines of the frame house in which the characters are trapped, impeccably timed and enhanced by music.
Mostly, though, it’s Auburn’s triumph. Proof, 25 years later, pulls us in and grips us in a manner that might surprise even the author.
Proof opened April 16, 2026, at the Booth Theatre and runs through July 19. Tickets and information: proofbroadway.com
