PROOF
Proof
is a highly-intelligent play in the tradition of Arcadia
and Copenhagen. Writer David Auburn uses math as a
foundation for a story about gender expectations,
madness and love.
While
Michael Freyn in Copenhagen uses the detective form
to explore the Uncertainty Principle in personal relationships,
Auburn uses the detective form to explore proof of
identity and trust.
The
structure gives us a first act that sets up a crime,
and yet no crime seems to have been committed. The
second act solves the crime that may not have been
a crime at all.
See
or read this play for techniques in bending a genre,
in this case, the infinitely-malleable detective story.
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