Theo Spring
23 February 2010
Niall Monaghan took this beautifully crafted play by David Auburn and brought out all its enigmatic twists and turns with the help of a very talented cast of four.
Martin Swain deserves an award of his own for the lighting and set design which brought to realistic life the porch of a weather boarded house in Chicago, complete with scruffy garden, scrunchy leaves and porch lights dripping with spiders' webs.
Here lives Catherine, a young mathematics student whose college plans are put on hold so she can care for her genius father whose mind has finally given up on him.
To give any further clues to the plot would spoil the tale. Suffice it to say that, although billed as a psychological drama, I found it more gentle than that description conjures up.
Hardly off the stage, Kirsty Pannett as Catherine delivered on the many emotional levels demanded of the role. Tenderness, resolve and a spirited determination were all needed in her repertoire and she dug deep to create a complex, caring character.
Demanding more of his acting skills than many of the roles I have seen him in before, David Sanders matched her well as Hal who teaches maths and shares her love of the excitement it can bring. Deferential to Catherine's father, sure in his subject, his insecurity in romance was touchingly sincere.
As the father Robert, Lawrence Marsh was able to enthuse the audience with his hopes and plans for his work, convincing us of his normality and his ability to make numbers do his bidding. His father/daughter scenes revealed his deep affection and concern for the daughter who had put her life on hold for him.
Striding into the lives in this house comes outspoken Claire with her New York ways. Olivia Beckwith's strong approach to the role of Catherine's sister provided contrast and a vivid inability to empathise with her sister's life. Partly due to her guilt at being only able to provide the financial support from a distance she had her own demons to face and there was immediate impact on her arrival – disturbing, doubting and interfering.
The proof of the title is a complicated mathematical formula, but the proof of this cast was their ability to hold an audience spellbound as the truth was slowly revealed.
