Truth is a virtue. It reveals secrets, warrants loyalty and demands honesty. It is so powerful that it can alter human relations in seconds. “Proof,” Willamette Repertory Theatre’s current play at the Hult Center, is a story that chases after a piece to life’s puzzle.
A play that deals with the fear plaguing one’s creative juice and, in this case, mathematical ingenuity, “Proof” has an engaging storyline, great cast and a mystery that only truth can solve.
Though two of the female characters at times seem over-acted and the ending leaves you wanting more answers, “Proof” will resonate with viewers.

The play, which won the 2001 Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize and was a film adaptation with Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins in 2005, begins with one of its more dramatic scenes. Robert (Wesley Bishop) is the father of two polarized sisters and a former mathematics professor and genius who spent the last years of his life scribbling furiously into notebook after notebook, hoping that his “machine” of a brain would fire up once more, while his younger daughter, Catherine, left Northwestern University to act as his live-in nurse.
Catherine sits on the creaky back porch of the family’s Chicago home, where the entire play is set, and bitterly argues with her father, who the audience finds out minutes later had died earlier that day. It’s late, and Catherine is drained, muddled about his death.
Suddenly, a new character arrives: Hal, a student of her father’s, who has been probing Robert’s piles of notebooks in the attic, charged with the intuition that Robert probably wrote a mathematical breakthrough, a proof, while the profession blacklisted him as crazy.
Hal (Quinn Mattfeld) is your picturesque math geek. He always carries a backpack and is sweet but says the wrong things; even his voice evokes a sense of nerdiness.
Hal does a wonderful performance as he strives to let Catherine believe in herself. Catherine, whose utter hostility becomes increasingly annoying, cannot accept Hal’s belief that something valid lies on the pages of her father’s notebooks. Angry, she begins to spit verbal accusations at Hal, even alleging that he, a protégé, wants to “get rich quick” off one of her father’s mathematical theories.
Hal tries to establish an honest rapport, insisting that he has not stolen a notebook. Catherine begins to believe him, even sarcastically joking about his rock band comprising mathematicians. But she quickly darts back to intuition, tears open his backpack but finds nothing. Feeling dumb, she hands Hal his jacket as he leaves – a notebook drops to the ground.
This opening scene foreshadows the theme that writer David Auburn intertwines throughout the script. The story is framed by the father’s death, which flies in the older sister, Claire, from New York and the subsequent unveiling of his sacred math notebooks.
A typical city girl, Claire (Megan Smith) has a successful career, is engaged, and seems to care more about seeing her old friends from Chicago than celebrating her father’s legacy. Her superficial character is extremely irritating and gives the audience an urge to boot her back to New York.
Catherine and Hal struggle to trust each other’s motives amidst a romantic buildup, while Catherine and Claire are sisters with disparate personalities who constantly quarrel. Claire uses her manipulative, big sister antics to control Catherine, forcing her to make quick decisions after her father’s death.
The plot takes a sharp turn when Catherine divulges a secret to Hal and Claire the morning after the funeral. There is a notebook in a locked drawer of the attic that will change the field of mathematics if proven right, but who wrote it? Catherine or her father? Despite the feelings Hal and Catherine have developed for each other, this makes Hal question the truth on which Catherine swears.
Mattfeld executes Hal’s character perfectly, playing on the stereotypical nuances privy to mathematicians. But the ending seems undeveloped and is somewhat disappointing, leaving viewers with questions of where Catherine will live after her father’s death and what life has in store for her; however, she does realize that she has inherited more of her father’s “machine” than people once thought.