NEW YORK — What a fantastic gift the playwright David Auburn and the director Thomas Kail have given to Ayo Edebiri.
After playing second fiddle to Jeremy Allen White on “The Bear,” her verbally halting character constantly at the mercy of Chef Carmy’s whims, the spectacular Edebiri makes her roaring Broadway debut at the center of a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, perfectly cast and utterly captivating as a formidable intellectual trying to reconcile her own explosive mathematical talents with a deeply felt obligation towards the care of her ailing father, a genius and a tough act to follow.
“Proof,” a love letter to Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, the home of the University of Chicago, was first seen on Broadway in 2000, before some of Edebiri’s fans were born. Judging by the sounds of surprise coming from various parts of the Booth Theatre, most people have forgotten (or never knew) the plot revelations in Auburn’s well-made, four-character play, the story of a bereaved daughter, Catherine, struggling with her mental health in the face of personal loss, even as she tries to assert her worth in the patriarchal world of university math geeks, few of whom believe this troubled young woman could possibly be anything more than a caregiver.
Kail stages this fast-paced revival with a non-white cast, a brilliant idea that only deepens the play’s themes and matches the diversity of Hyde Park.
Don Cheadle plays Catherine’s father, who appears in flashbacks. Kara Young is Catherine’s Gotham-based sister, Claire, a woman who has run from pure math in favor of New York money; she’s the most stereotypical of the quartet and Young strives ably to give her more depth. And Jin Ha plays Catherine’s maybe-suitor, a young math geek who dances on the knife-edge of self-interest and genuine concern, although we never doubt that Catherine is his superior in every way.
Indeed, she’s everyone’s superior, as Edebiri makes abundantly clear all night long. Cheadle clearly figured out that his main job here is to cue her up and get out of her way; that is greatly to this veteran actor’s credit. We see what he is doing.
Given her fame on “The Bear,” Edebiri’s performance will surprise many in its verbal surety. Kail clearly chose to focus on an intense conversational reality here and the actress’ ability to power through the story is quite something, especially since it comes with such palpable depths of feeling.
Fans of the TV show that launched Edebiri’s career will remember a plot point involving her sous chef’s dad, scenes that are strikingly similar to ones in this play. Perhaps that gave Kail the entire idea. Either way, it’s an inspired way to bring back one of the very few plays that does not see moving to New York as a positive, but asserts the value of the intellectual life in Chicago, where there is space, air and warm lake breezes.
Teresa L. Williams’ set did not do much for me; Catherine’s house doesn’t bespeak of Hyde Park brownstones, or even urbanity, so much as some generic Midwest vista, which is not right for this play. And a prior production at Court Theatre made much more of the beauty of the changing of campus seasons, one of the ways Auburn gets at the nourishing pleasures of an academic life.
But those are minor quibbles when you have a lead like Edebiri firing on all cylinders.
“Proof” is one of the best American dramas to emerge in the last decade of the 20th century, a script ripe for revival not least for how beautifully it focuses on a little family of imperfect humans, all loving each other in their own flawed ways and better able to deal with monumental thoughts than the thornier challenges of just getting out of bed when grief has overtaken you.
It’s a lovely Chicago play, brought thrillingly back to Broadway life.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
At the Booth Theatre, 222 W. 45th St., New York; proofbroadway.com
