Experience that walk on the thin line

David Auburn's Proof, the English award-winning family drama, is coming to town but will be performed as a Chinese-language version, starting this evening until Sunday.

The play debuted on Broadway in 2000 and was an immediate success, sweeping two major awards, the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

It was made into a motion picture this year, directed by John Madden and starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins.

The film is expected to premiere in December, the Taiwan release will follow later.

The Greenray Theater (綠光劇團) has included Proof as part of its annual world drama series and to attract public attention for prominent plays produced abroad.

Joyce Chiou (邱媛), who is in charge of planning and international affairs for the theater, said the aim was to annually produce two local and two international plays "to broaden the scope of theatrical performances in Taiwan."

Since 2003, the troupe has staged highly-praised international works done by Canadian, French, French and US playwrights.

Similar to the motion picture A Beautiful Mind, the play Proof explores the themes of mathematics and mental illness -- ?and the thin line between genius and madness.

The play has just four characters.

Catherine, 25, is the moody and withdrawn daughter of a once brilliant University of Chicago mathematician named Robert, who dies after a long bout of mental illness.

Catherine wonders whether she has inherited her father's instability, in addition to his mathe-matical genius. Catherine's older sister, Claire, lives in New York and returns to Chicago for their father's funeral.

Hal is Robert's post-graduate math student, who tries to sort through 103 notebooks his mentor left behind. He discovers a revolutionary mathematical theory in his former professor's papers, but Catherine claims it as her own -- though Hal and Claire doubt she came up with the theory herself.

Arthur Lazere in Culture Vulture sums up the play thus: "Proof is about family relationships and responsibilities, about love and guilt and vulnerability and trust and death and loss. It deals with the big issues, but it keeps them on a human scale and maintains a sense of humor in the process."

Deeply touched by the themes of the play, the Greenray Theater crew has a solid cast for the challenging roles, including Luo Bei-an (羅北安), Lang Zu-yun (郎祖筠), Yao Kun-jun (姚坤君) and Fan Guang-yao (樊光耀). Fan won a Golden Bell Award for Best Actor this year.

Performance notes:

What: Proof (求證)

When: Tonight at 7:30pm; Saturday 2:30pm and 7:30pm; Sunday at 2:30pm

Where: National Taiwan Arts Education Center (國立台灣藝術教育館) at 47, Nanhai Road, Taipei (台北市南海路47號)

Ticket Price: NT$600 and NT$800

Call: (02) 2395 6838