Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – David Auburn’s PROOF returns to Broadway in a sensitively-acted production starring a beguiling Ayo Edebiri

• By drediman
• April 27, 2026
• No Comments

Last week, I had the great opportunity to catch up with Thomas Kail’s sensitively-acted revival of David Auburn’s Proof starring Ayo Edebiri and Don Cheadle in their Broadway debuts, alongside Kara Young and Jin Ha. When the play first premiered Off-Broadway in 2000 at Manhattan Theater Club, it garnered wide critical and public acclaim, eventually transferring to the Main Stem, winning both the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play.

Edebiri is beguiling and totally in-the-moment as Catherine, a mathematically gifted young woman who takes time off from her college studies to care for her father Robert — played by immense likability by Cheadle — a University of Chicago mathematics professor whose mental decline is rapid. As the play begins, we find out about his recent passing, which is accompanied by visits by Catherine’s concerned sister (portrayed by Young, in a performance that demonstrates her range and versatility as an actress) and Robert’s grad student mentee (the very talented and chameleonic Ha), who confront Catherine about her emotional and psychological well-being vis-à-vis the discovery of a groundbreaking proof that she may or may not have written. The play’s central themes remain universal and timeless, particularly with regards to grief and mental health, legacy and inheritance, and the burden of genius. But unlike plays such as Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia or Nick Payne’s Constellations — which ingeniously inform the drama at hand with the fundamental principals of the underlying physics of the universe — Auburn largely remains silent on the the substance of the found proof.

Although it initially comes across as tentative, I applaud Kail’s production for smartly moving away from Daniel Sullivan’s original naturalistic staging in favor of a gently expressionistic visual interpretation that artfully suggests the fragile translucency of Catherine’s mental state. My only gripe is that, given the play’s Chicago South Side setting, Teresa L. Williams’ blandly idyllic back porch set looks nothing like a Hyde Park home would have at the turn of the century (this coming from someone who attended the University of Chicago during the play’s timeframe). A residence more appropriate for Winnetka, perhaps?

RECOMMENDED

PROOF
Broadway, Play
Booth Theatre
2 hours, 15 minutes (with one intermission)
Through July 19