Short Takes: Two plays where the past is prologue

David Auburn’s Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning play Proof has been revived for a limited engagement on Broadway, and a magnificent and moving production it is. 

Proof centers on Catherine (Ayo Edebiri), the daughter of recently deceased mathematical genius Robert (Don Cheadle). Robert kept notebooks in which he wrote his work and results. Catherine, his live-in caretaker, worked with him; younger sister Claire (Kara Young) pursued a career in New York which provided support for the family. Hal (Jin Ha), a former doctoral student of Robert’s, has been allowed to read through the notebooks, seeking to publish anything that could enhance his mentor’s reputation, but Catherine is suspicious that he will try to pass off her father’s work as his own. Claire, returning for the funeral, tries to convince Catherine to move to New York, live with Claire and her fiancé, and create a new life for herself.

When Hal discovers a notebook containing the proof of a previously unproven theory, he wants to show it to other mathematicians and get authentication of the proof. Claire wants to know when Catherine found this proof. Catherine stuns them both, saying she didn’t find it — she wrote it. But with no formal training, how could she have?

Ayo Edibiri, making her Broadway debut, creates a masterful portrait of a complex woman facing relegation to roles denying her autonomy, while fearing her emergent genius foretells a descent into the mental illness that claimed her father. In his Broadway debut, Don Cheadle gives a career-defining performance as the father, appearing to his brilliant daughter in flashbacks and reveries. Director Thomas Kail skillfully guides his cast along a path of conflicting beliefs designed to question the validity of an independent spirit and to impose conformity upon it.

Proof is a psychological mystery, a treatise on the thin line between genius and madness, and a powerful dramatic experience. I urge you to see this show before its engagement ends on July 19.

proofbroadway.com.

Events in the past frequently affect the present in Shakespeare’s plays, especially his histories. The three plays collectively titled Henry VI have been condensed and adapted into two plays by director Stephen Brown-Fried and co-presented by the Public Theater and the National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO). The results are a mixed bag.

Jon Norman Schneider as Henry VI leads a large cast through the two separate plays. In part one, Foreign Wars, the nine-month-old Henry succeeds his late father. His power-hungry uncles form rival factions, solidifying alliances while serving as a Regency Council until Henry reaches maturity. Charles, Dauphin of France (David Lee Huynh), with Joan of Arc (Myka Cue) at his side, rebels against England’s rule over much of France, chipping away at the occupiers’ holdings.

In part two, Civil Strife, the Regency council is dissolved as Henry comes of age. The feuding family members divide into the House of York, symbolized by white roses, and the House of Lancaster, using red roses, and 32 years of the Wars of the Roses commence. At the same time, the Welsh scoundrel Jack Cade (Orville Mendoza) starts a peasant uprising to put a false claimant on the throne (“Let’s kill all the lawyers”). 

Betrayals and shifting allegiances abound through both plays. With such a large cast, many playing multiple parts, you can’t tell the players even with a scorecard. And the uneven sound quality allowed several lines of dialog to be unamplified. NAATCO and the Public Theater deserve credit for attempting to make Shakespeare’s trilogy more accessible to modern audiences. But there are reasons why Henry VI is not more often revived, and not every Shakespearean play shows the playwright at his best. I recommend these plays, which close July 19, only to die-hard fans of the Bard. 

publictheater.org.