Proof Positive

Last Saturday night a whole bunch of us Toronto bloggy peeps went to go see one of our own - the fabulous NoMo - in a play at a local theatre. The play was Proof, by David Auburn. Yes, the same one that was made into a movie with Gwyneth Paltrow a few years back, which was big enough that you can't ignore it when you talk about the play now, but which I didn't see - more about that later.

The theatre is a lovely little theatre that I should be embarrassed to admit I didn't even know was 5 minutes from my house - in the summer, I could walk it - and the set was well done - simple, yet full of detail that made it feel exactly like the back yard of a slightly neglected house. The overall feel of the set and the size of the room was intimate, yet not so close as to take away the remove from the play itself.

When the play started, I found myself pleasantly surprised by the acting. I have often found stage acting to be a bit... large, perhaps? I get that it's a different thing than film acting, which asks for much subtler nuance, but I sometimes feel it gets overplayed instead. In this case, I found the actors perfectly pitched to the size of the room. Enough that everyone was getting the effect, but not so much that it seemed overdone to people closer to the front. I bought the actors completely, my only hesitation coming in the first moments of NoMo's performance because I was seeing her as her in the moments before she started speaking, and her character's brusque manner is at odds with her own, but that quickly fell away as the character drew me in.

The play is a funny one at the same time as being tragic in aspects - I literally both laughed and cried. The jokes worked well, the earnestness of the math student Hal came through as a puppyish eagerness that made it seem like he didn't know most of it was funny, which only added. The comments about the crazy partying mathematicians made me laugh and comment to Blog Chocolate next to me that it sounded just like librarians.

The tragic moments were the thing that had made me avoid the movie when it came out. I wasn't ready to see something about mental illness, especially not in a parent. I'm not sure I would choose to now either, if it weren't for NoMo starring in it, but I know I've come a ways, so I figured I could take it. So yes, I choked up pretty hard when the father's brain failed him, I felt the daughter's pain and sorrow, but this is part of what made it great. That juxtaposed with the laughter made for good balance. Plus, I knew that the ladies I was with knew the backstory and would understand if I was a mess for a bit, but it was good, the balance, so I was fine, which I think speaks to the playwright's skill as much as anything.

I came away feeling impressed. With the set, with the lovely little theatre, with the acting, and with the play itself. I might even be curious enough to see the movie some time, but then, why ruin a good thing?

If you'd like to be impressed, too, go see it. The East Side Players are performing Proof at the Papermill Theatre at Todmorden Mills until March 7th.