"PROOF" By David Auburn "SCAPIN" by Moliére

David Auburn's bittersweet, suspenseful two act drama, "Proof," was originally produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club in May 2000.  Suzanne Birrell is the current director for her production (Birrell/Jones) now playing at Exit Theatre at 156 Eddy,  in San Francisco through October 29 and 30th.  I strongly advise you to see it.  Off Market, Powell BARTand MUNI station, #27 Muni bus. 

      Gabrielle Patacsil plays Catherine, the tormented daughter of Robert (a brilliant Kevin Copps), a mathematical genius on the verge of solving a mathematical conundrum that has stumped great minds for centuries.  Like John Forbes Nash, Jr. - - played by Oscar winner Russell Crowe in the film "A Beautiful Mind" - - he suffers a breakdown, but unlike Forbes, dies before he can complete his work.  Catherine has inherited her father's genius and is deeply concerned that she may have inherited his mental illness as well.  There is not one false note in Ms. Patacsil's portrayal of Catherine.  She plays the fragile Catherine with nuanced emotions, striking the right chords in her relationship with her father and sister, Claire (Theresa Adams), as well as one of her father's former students, Hal (a delightful, engaging Eric Reid), now a mathematics professor himself, and self-described geek who also plays drums in a garage rock band that manages to get minor local gigs. 

     The action takes place on the back porch of their old, drafty house in Chicago, on a simple set consisting of  wicker furniture and a wooden table and chairs.  The play centers around Catherine's birthday, September 4th, opening with a scene between her and Robert, who pressures her to celebrate and do something to overcome her depression. They discuss "craziness."  Robert says, "Crazy people don't ask if they're crazy."  And that a crazy person would never admit that they are crazy.  Still, crazy people don't know they are crazy.  At the end of the scene, we realize he is an hallucination.

     Theresa Adams is spot on as Claire, Catherine's sister, with believable concern for her sibling to assuage her guilt, perhaps?  Claire has come from New York for their father's funeral and tries to persuade her sister to move there with her - - one of the many conflicts that surface between them.  Catherine is paranoid about her father's work about which he has written extensively in hundreds of notebooks he has kept in his study.  Hal has been called in to organize his notebooks.  In one scene, as he is leaving, Catherine believes he has stolen one.  They argue; she pulls off his backpack, which struck me as somewhat unlikely in that she comes off as frail and listless and he - - an able-looking guy.  Still, this is a minor point and in no way affects the play's overall strengths.

     Unless you have a program and refer to it throughout, it's possible to be confused.   Where the scenes in Act One are chronological, the first scene in Act Two jumps back four years to when Robert was at his best and we see a happy father-daughter relationship.  The scene that follows, flashes back to immediately after the last scene in the first act where guilt, blame, jealousy, and mistrust arise between the sisters.  Catherine the genius had dropped out of college to care for her father for four years during his illness while homemaker, fashion-maven Claire (she bought Catherine a little black dress for the funeral) stayed in New York, rarely calling.  A turning point in the play happens when Claire drops a metaphorical bomb on her sister, undermining what little security she has left.

     Director Birrell dealt delicately with Copps portrayal of Robert's descent into madness in Act Two, which takes place some three years in the past.  In a brief chat with her during intermission, she said that Copps nails it.  Barefoot, sitting outside in the cold Chicago winter, he appears not only tortured, but to age and shrink within himself as Catherine, on a break from college, tries to make sense of his rambling notes which he has asked her to read.  Sadly, she realizes, not at all the work of a brilliant mind, but as one who has lost it.

     A startling find is revealed about Catherine's own work which furthers her father's.  She entrusts it to Hal and an issue of trust enters the picture.  The proof that it is hers resides in how her father noted his work as compared to Catherine.  In the final moments of the last scene, whether it was intentional or not on the director's part, as Catherine gets ready to leave with Claire, she buttons her coat wrong which gives us an insight to her emotional instability.

     Some have said that Auburn's "Proof" is a dark, depressing play and have staged it as such.  Yet throughout, there is humor, especially between Robert when he was well and Catherine, and in her playfulness with Hal.  There is a fine balance finding humor in a play dealing with the serious subject of mental illness, as well as in portraying insanity and genius.  The actors' physicality throughout was true, seemingly spontaneous.  Suzanne Birrell is the rare director who lets her actors take time to think during a scene.  She is not afraid of pauses and trusts her actors to convey their character's inner workings in stillness.

     Crystal Nezgoda not only worked up the perfect wardrobe for the actors to embody their characters, but is also Assistant Director.  Chuck Jones designed the sound; the haunting, original music was composed by Suzanne Birrell

San Francisco LOVES Bill Irwin!
This is no surprise. Since his days as Willie, the Clown with the Pickle Family Circus, teaming up with partner Geoff Hoyle (Mr. Sniff), Irwin has delighted and amazed us with his work. He is our Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel, and Buster Keaton.  Enough cannot be said about Irwin's physicality. It's as though he were made of rubber; it appears that he can move his body in several directions at once; his neck and limbs seem to grow and shrink.  The only other actor who comes close is Jim Carrey. 

Irwin and Mark O'Donnell adapted Moliére's "Scapin"  first for the Seattle Repertory Theatre before its New York run where I like to think they perfected it before bringing it to San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre.  In classic satirical form, Irwin, who directed, updated the play with send-ups on current political, cultural, and social issues.  He breaks the fourth-wall and gets away with poking fun of his own profession: Theatre, the Art of. as well as theatregoers (focusing on subscribers, even appearing as one in a side balcony, in a Sarah Palin-like red suit) things that Moliére allowed in this particular play, according to an interview with Irwin, and why Irwin chose it.

The characters and the premise are close to stock Commedia D'el Arte: mistaken identities, conniving servants, the clueless rich, and oppressive, jack-booted gendarmes. Irwin plays Scapin, the title character, as both actor and clown.  Scapin is a servant to wealthy merchant, Argante (ACT regular, Steven Anthony Jones); his buddy, Sylvestre (Jud Williford, who is just about equal to Irwin's shtick), is servant to Geronte (Geoff Hoyle) who also is a wealthy merchant. Wealthy merchants don't have as much fun as servants, so Hoyle is somewhat restricted in his rôle, yet still gets off some funny bits as a man in a sack. True to Commedia, Argante's daughter has been missing for years only to be rediscovered at the end of the play as the raucus gypsy, Zerbinette (René Augesen, who is building quite a reputation for playing sexy, beautiful women. Perhaps this is not much of a stretch).

Octave (Gregory Wallace, another ACT regular), son of  Argante is married to an alleged foreigner, the vacuous blonde, Hyacinth (comely played by Ashley Wickett). Leander (dashing Patrick Lane) loves Zerbinette. You sense the womens' rivalry in the way they gleefully massacre each other's names. Then there's the maid, Nerine (beautifully underplayed by Omozé Idehenre), who arrives with suitcases and a huge steamer trunk she drags across the stage. Scapin is smitten and his compliments unintentionally end up as double entendres, causing him all kinds of confusion which he depicts hilariously with his hat, posture, and floppy hair.  Large sums of money are involved in the transactions between fathers and sons.  There's a trumped up hostage situation involving Geronte's son Leander and a boat.  Geronte responds to Scapin's explanation of why he needs the money with an exasperating, repeated, "But why did the boy get into the boat?"

Keith Pinto and Ben Johnson play threatening Gendarmes who stride menacingly across the stage with consummate precision, interrupting Scapin and Sylvestre's underhanded activities.   They also play agreeable, subservient Porters.

A bonus to Irwin's reworking of the play is his inclusion of his long time musician friends, Randall Craig (George), actor and musician with the San Francisco Mime Troupe and Pickle Family Circus founder;  and body-percussionist/dancer Keith Terry (Fred).  His interaction and repartee with them throughout is delightfully hilarious.  Craig and Terry accent and underscore the actions on stage and back up Irwin and Williford's occasional break out into jive and swing.   The actors' and musicians' comic timing is unsurpassed.

Please try to see this extraordinary production which ends its run on October 23rd.  Go to http://www.act-sf.org/.