“Proof,” a highly acclaimed Broadway drama that focuses on finding solutions to life’s problems and puts trust to the test will be presented on the Laredo stage by the Laredo Community College Drama Workshop during a three-day run beginning Friday, Oct. 14.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by David Auburn, the local adaptation will be offered on Oct. 14 and 15 at 8 p.m. and on Oct. 16 at 3 p.m. in the Guadalupe and Lilia Martinez Fine Arts Center theater at the LCC main campus. Admission is $5 per person.
Gil Martinez Jr., LCC drama workshop instructor and the show’s director, said that the play centers on a young woman named Catherine who is coming to terms with the death of her father Robert, a once-great mathematician whose final years led him on a downward spiral to madness.
The death of the mathematician brings two people back into Catherine’s life, including her difficult and controlling sister Claire, and Hal, a former student of the mathematician. Hal hopes to find some hint of Robert’s genius among his many notebooks with incoherent scribbling.
“The intrusion of Claire and Hal plunges Catherine into frightening turmoil and concern that she may have inherited her father’s madness along with his brilliance. As she and Hal become attracted to each other, they push the edges of each other’s knowledge, considering not only the unpredictability of genius, but also the human instinct toward love and trust,” Martinez said.
Martinez said he chose this play because of Auburn’s excellent writing.
“David Auburn has the pulse on how to make real life not only entertaining, but thought provoking. I also admire writers who write well-developed roles for women. There are so few, and Mr. Auburn has done just that,” Martinez said.
The local cast includes Jose Flores III as Robert, Mara L. Lopez as Catherine, Daisy Flores as Claire and Andrew Villarreal as Hal.
Jose Flores is the “guest artist” who is enrolled in the Drama Workshop class for personal enrichment. He is a drama teacher at J.W. Nixon High School.
Lopez is a concurrently enrolled LCC student from Nixon High School. She actively participates in theatre and is planning on attending UT-Austin next fall.
Daisy Flores is taking an acting class at LCC and works as a senior sales consultant for a business machine company.
Villarreal is a full-time student at LCC and TAMIU, enrolled in the drama workshop class as an elective.
The 90-minute-long play is the same story featured in the new motion picture playing in selected cities. The movie features Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins.
“This is the same story that is portrayed in the film. However, the play came first and the movie is not scheduled to show in Laredo,” Martinez noted.
“Proof” has won a remarkable number of awards, including the Pulitzer for drama and the Tony award for best play, but, those awards are not what make it great, Martinez said.
“I come across many playwrights and many good plays. Every once in while a playwright writes a play that drives to the real heart of what American theatre is all about. ‘Proof’ is one of those plays. It is pure drama with a fundamental story, which does not waste a single line of dialogue,” Martinez said.
The college play is sponsored by the Department of Reading, Communication and Theatre at LCC. For more information, call 721-5358.
Mara Lopez and Jose Flores III portray the father-daughter connection of Catherine and Robert.
From left, Catherine (Mara Lopez) tears off the pages from one of her father’s notebooks as her sister, Claire (Daisy Flores) attempts to stop her.
Love begins to blossom between Hal (Andrew Villarreal) and Catherine (Mara Lopez) as the story progresses.
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