- Paperback: 96 pages
- Publisher: Faber and Faber; 1 edition (9 July 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0571199976
- ISBN-13: 978-0571199976
- Product Dimensions: 21 x 13.8 x 0.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 98,350 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
'An exhilirating and assured new play... As accessible and compelling as a detective story.' Bruce Weber, New York Times
Product Description
Following the death of her brilliant mathematician father, Catherine struggles to come to terms with his legacy. Inheriting some of both his brilliance and his instability, she is torn between her sister, Claire, who wants to take her back to New York, and Hal, a former student of her father's, who tests both her knowledge and her emotions. In Proof, David Auburn has fashioned an exhilarating and assured play -a subtle and gripping exploration of loss, guilt, discovery, instability, and, ultimately, the elusive nature of truth.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
I got interested to this book after I watched half of the film with Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins and Jake Gyllenhaal.
I found it nice, interesting, but very short.
I was also envisioning all my characters like the one in the film which is not good... I recommend to read the play before watching the film.
It's a painless good short read which left me maybe a bit lukewarm, but generally satisfied.
Bye
I found it nice, interesting, but very short.
I was also envisioning all my characters like the one in the film which is not good... I recommend to read the play before watching the film.
It's a painless good short read which left me maybe a bit lukewarm, but generally satisfied.
Bye
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
39 reviews
35 of 39 people found the following review helpful
A CHALLENGING, ENTERTAINING PLAY
4 April 2002
Format:Paperback
Not since David Hirson's brilliant La Bete and Wrong Mountain has Broadway seen a more exciting play than Proof! I recommend this book to anyone who appreciates theatre that is as challenging as it is entertaining. I sent many friends to see the original production, and none was disappointed.
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Takes Me Back to the Walter Kerr Theater
21 May 2001
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
In the past few years there has been a resurgence of plays with themes centered around math and science and characters who are mathematicians and scientists. Thank heaven! Michael Frayn's "Copenhagen" is magnificent. Then there are two plays produced by the Manhattan Theater Club: "An Experiment with an Air Pump" by Shelagh Stephenson and this play, "Proof" by David Auburn. I think both are wonderful.
After winning the Pulitzer, a shot at a Tony, and a continuing run on Broadway, Auburn really has no need for my good words; however, let me give a few anyway. This is a cleverly written piece. Unlike "Copenhagen," this play really isn't about mathematicians and scientists. It is just framed around them. No math skills are necessary to enjoy this play. Instead, it is an examination of love, trust, madness and genius presented through the lives of mathematicians.
In fact, the only weakness in this play is when real mathematics comes up. I cringed when I heard the famous exchange between mathematicians G.H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan put in the mouth of Robert and Catherine, the father/daughter mathematicians at the heart of this play. It just rubbed me the wrong way.
Fortunately, this is the only time math actually comes up. Instead, this play takes us into the lives of four very interesting people. I was fortunate enough to see a performance of this play on its second night on Broadway. I was incredibly moved. Mary-Louise Parker's performance as Catherine was particularly impressive. Reading the script, I was carried right back to the theater and could relive the experience again. I loved it.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Deserved its Pulitzer.
28 Jun 2005
Format:Paperback
David Auburn, Proof (Dramatists Play Service, 2001)
I spent a good deal of my elementary and junior high school years reading plays, as I fancied myself an actor back in the day. A somewhat bad actor, to be sure, but I did manage to score the role of Reb Nahum in our fifth-grade production of Fiddler on the Roof. (Go me!) Acting in theater, however small, gave me a taste for reading plays, and it was quite enjoyable. Somewhere along the way, though, I tailed off, and it has only been recently (as in, in the past month) I've rediscovered the pleasure of reading a stage play. Proof is the second one I've encountered since starting again, and if the quality of these two is anything to go by, I've obviously been missing out on quite a bit in the quarter-century I haven't been keeping up.
Proof is the story of a guy, a girl, and a mathematical equation. Which may not sound all that interesting when put that way, but it is. The girl is the daughter of a mathematical genius who suffered, while still young, a debilitating mental illness. (Think A Beautiful Mind without the paranoia and racism.) The guy is one of his doctoral students from the recent past, when he had a lucid year and briefly advised students at the local university again. The mathematical equation-- well, you'll just have to see, or read, the play.
In a very short span of pages (seventy-four, to be precise), Auburn creates two compelling characters (and a few equally compelling minor players), puts them into a situation, and gives us enough to care about them in the most minimal fashion possible; while there's too much going on for the brevity of the play to really focus on the two of them, the reader still comes to understand much about their depth and various quirks. (It's not for nothing this play won a Drama Pulitzer.) There's no real revelation here; it's almost as if Proof is actually the prequel to whatever it is Auburn really wants to write about these characters. But it works, and it works very well. Enjoyable, and highly recommended. ****
I spent a good deal of my elementary and junior high school years reading plays, as I fancied myself an actor back in the day. A somewhat bad actor, to be sure, but I did manage to score the role of Reb Nahum in our fifth-grade production of Fiddler on the Roof. (Go me!) Acting in theater, however small, gave me a taste for reading plays, and it was quite enjoyable. Somewhere along the way, though, I tailed off, and it has only been recently (as in, in the past month) I've rediscovered the pleasure of reading a stage play. Proof is the second one I've encountered since starting again, and if the quality of these two is anything to go by, I've obviously been missing out on quite a bit in the quarter-century I haven't been keeping up.
Proof is the story of a guy, a girl, and a mathematical equation. Which may not sound all that interesting when put that way, but it is. The girl is the daughter of a mathematical genius who suffered, while still young, a debilitating mental illness. (Think A Beautiful Mind without the paranoia and racism.) The guy is one of his doctoral students from the recent past, when he had a lucid year and briefly advised students at the local university again. The mathematical equation-- well, you'll just have to see, or read, the play.
In a very short span of pages (seventy-four, to be precise), Auburn creates two compelling characters (and a few equally compelling minor players), puts them into a situation, and gives us enough to care about them in the most minimal fashion possible; while there's too much going on for the brevity of the play to really focus on the two of them, the reader still comes to understand much about their depth and various quirks. (It's not for nothing this play won a Drama Pulitzer.) There's no real revelation here; it's almost as if Proof is actually the prequel to whatever it is Auburn really wants to write about these characters. But it works, and it works very well. Enjoyable, and highly recommended. ****
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