Riverside's "Proof" is a moving production
By Ruby Nancy, QUAD-CITY TIMES -- February 6, 2003

Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winner “Proof” is a fabulous play, and when I saw Riverside Theatre’s marvelous production of it Sunday afternoon, it was the second time in three days I got to see a play that moved me to tears.

It was something of a turnabout weekend, too, since Iowa City’s Riverside produced “Wit” last year — another Pulitzer-winning drama — and “Wit” opened last weekend at New Ground Theatre in Bettendorf, where “Proof” played in 2002.

Confused?  Don’t be.

Be very, very thankful that we have two such remarkable groups willing and able to take on material of this quality. It’s kind of like a Doublemint moment where the twins look really, um, attractive.

To get back on topic, Riverside’s version of “Proof,” like the script, is superb. It’s a love story about math, a drama that will make you laugh, a sad play that offers hope — in short, it’s a show that includes all the complexities that make life and theater so interesting.

With the original sound design and original music that John Gromada created for the Broadway production, director Mark Hunter had access to rich background sound texture that adds intimacy (and occasionally, humor) to this version of the play, but the terrific cast he has assembled deserves most of the attention here.

Ron Clark is wonderful — brilliant and distant, frustrated and needy, loving and confused — as Robert, a mathematician whose illness interfered with his work and with the work of his daughter, Catherine, who loves her father and the art and science of his field.

Jamie Powers does excellent, subtly restrained work as Claire, Catherine’s older sister. Powers gives Claire more warmth than I’ve seen before, giving surprising dimension to the archetypical role, and what she does works because of her perfect nuance.

Jeremy S. Van Meter is also first-rate as Hal, the nerdy and surprisingly vulnerable protégé who admires Robert’s achievements. His no-holds-barred immersion in the role leaves no possible indignity unexpressed, yet he still manages to become, improbably, a romantic leading man before the show is finished.

As Catherine, Sandra DeLuca is at the center of the play, and her work here is incredibly fantastic. From young idealism to the deepest despair, from anger to the awakening of love, this wonderful part covers a wide emotional territory — and DeLuca is absolutely up to task in every way. It’s a stunning performance that you will remember long after this show closes, and watching her live out the experiences of the character on stage is an exhausting, wrenching, cathartic experience that perfectly exemplifies the transcendence that is the heart and soul of drama.

Nothing is overdone; nothing is melodramatic or theatrical. Yet DeLuca’s performance, and this show in its entirely, will surely move you to tears as it moved me.

One of two truly great shows I saw last weekend, “Proof” is simply to good to miss.

So don’t.

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