Proof by David Auburn

Proof

A Play

David Auburn

Farrar Straus & Giroux · Print & ebook · March 5, 2001

David Auburn's Proof won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was adapted to film by director John Madden, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, and Jake Gyllenhaal.

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Who it’s for
A play where mathematical brilliance meets the uncertain business of love, trust, and family.
Themes
Love and trust, Family caregiving and sacrifice, Genius and instability
Genres
American Plays, Family Drama, Grief & Loss

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About this book

David Auburn's Proof won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was adapted to film by director John Madden, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, and Jake Gyllenhaal. One of the most acclaimed plays of its time, Proof is a work that explores the unknowability of love as much as it does the mysteries of science.

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It focuses on Catherine, a young woman who has spent years caring for her father, Robert, a brilliant mathematician in his youth who was later unable to function without her help. His death has brought into her midst both her sister, Claire, who wants to take Catherine back to New York with her, and Hal, a former student of Catherine's father who hopes to find some hint of Robert's genius among his incoherent scribblings. The passion that Hal feels for math both moves and angers Catherine, who, in her exhaustion, is torn between missing her father and resenting the great sacrifices she made for him. For Catherine has inherited at least a part of her father's brilliance—and perhaps some of his instability as well. As she and Hal become attracted to each other, they push at the edges of each other's knowledge, considering not only the unpredictability of genius but also the human instinct toward love and trust.

Proof and Feeling

A play where mathematical brilliance meets the uncertain business of love, trust, and family.

Come here for

  • Math and intimate family tensions sharing the same dramatic space
  • A thoughtful look at genius, sacrifice, and trust

Expect

  • Questions of brilliance and instability without easy certainty
  • A drama that treats love and mathematics as mysteries

Where it sits

American Plays77%
Grief & Loss77%
Family Drama40%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • American Plays
  • Grief & Loss
  • Family Drama
Authors
David Auburn
Publisher
Farrar Straus & Giroux
Published
March 5, 2001
Format
Print & ebook
Theme
Love and trust · Family caregiving and sacrifice · Genius and instability
Reading lane
American Plays