The play Proof is about Catherine, who has been taking care of her sick father, retired math professor, Robert. Now that Robert is dead, Cathy is trying to figure out what to do with her life. Her sister Claire has flown in from New York for the funeral and is trying to convince Cathy to return to New York with her (so that Claire can take care of her, since she thinks Cathy is just as insane as their father). The final character in the story is Hal, a former student of Robert’s. Hal is convinced that during Robert’s brief remission he did some very important mathematics and is determined to find it. Cathy opens up to Hal enough to show him her own math work which turns out to be a monumental proof. However, neither Hal nor Claire believe that it is her own work; they think it is Robert’s doing. Cathy feels angry at Claire (with whom conflicts involving trust and confidence are frequent) but she feels betrayed by Hal, who she grew to trust. The whole play takes place in Cathy’s back yard. There is a small porch with a door leading into the house and a patio table with chairs and a fence off to the side of the house. The two entrances are the back door of the house and the fence gate.
The main conflict of the play is what Cathy will do with her life now that she has no father to take care of. Her sister is telling her to come to New York (and probably be encouraged to get psychiatric help). Cathy wants to stay and live in her father’s house. Through the dialogue it is clear that Claire thinks she needs to walk on egg shells and talk gently to Cathy and makes decisions for her and pretends not to blame anything on her, as if Cathy is not well enough to be responsible for her own actions and decisions. In the following passage Claire and Cathy are discussing their late father.
Catherine: He needed to be here. In his own house, near the university, near his students, near everything that made him happy.
Claire: Maybe. Or maybe some real professional care would have done him more good than rattling around in a tilthy house with you looking after him.
I’m sorry, Cathrine, I’s not your fault. Its my fault for letting you do it.
Catherine: I was right to keep him here.
Claire: No.
Catherine: What about his remission? Four years ago. He was Healthy for almost a year.
ClaireL And he went right downhill again.
Catherine: He might have been worse in a hospital.
Claire: And he might have been better. Did he ever do any work again?
Catherine: No
Claire: No. And you might have been better.
Catherine: Better than what? (p. 44-45)
In that exchange Claire takes comeplete ownership of the decisions behind her father’s illness as if Cathy isn’t capable of forming rational opinions on the matter. She also challenges Cathy’s capacity to care for herself and her father. We know that Claire and Cathy grew up in that house, but Claire has been away for years and I think its more profound that every scene is in the back yard of this house, and every scene has Cathy when Claire goes ahead and sells it without Cathy’s consent. The point is that this is Cathy’s house, and Claire really isn’t around enough to necessarily know what is best for her sister.
There is a larger sense of finality in the last scene where the conflict is between Cathy and Hal. She is quite clear that he hurt her profoundly and that there is nothing he can do to repair the situation. The play ends with the two of them sitting on the porch going through her proof. Although it seems there is now a truce between them, we know that things have changed. Cathy will move into a new home, and although she may talk to Hal about her work, she will never think of him romantically again.
This finality is also emphasized in subtleties of the stage directions. In the first scene Hal enters from the back door of the house center stage. In this scene he has already been let into the house and has been going through Robert’s old notebooks. The second scene is the night of Robert’s funeral. Claire invited some people for a tasteful gathering after the funeral that turned into a raging party. Hal steps out from the party looking for Cathy and they talk and go back into the house together. The third scene is the morning afterwards; Hal and Cathy have slept together and he again enters from the back door. In two of these entrances there is still an initial awkwardness, however there is also an element of familiarity and acceptance in all three. This is vastly different than in the second half of the play. During a flashback to when Hal is still Robert’s student, Hal comes to the house off the side through a fence door. There is a sense of formality and awkwardness to this because Hal has never before been to his professor’s house and does not know his family well. In the final scenes of the play, after he betrayed Cathy’s trust, Hal enters again from the fence, no longer having the same access to the house.
I don’t think its a coincidence that the scenes where Hal and Cathy truly connect are at night. The first is the opening scene where he is looking through Robert’s notebooks; there is some hostility coming from Cathy, but in the end they do make a connection. Likewise the following night, the night of Robert’s funeral, the connection is immediately notable. It is clear that after the first scene they have gotten pretty close (as close as one can get after a couple days). This almost feeds into the morning after scene when Hal doesn’t believe she wrote the proof. The huge difference in lighting, due to the change in time of day, is almost like foreshadowing: This scene is different than the previous two, there will be a pivotal turning point here. I think seeing the same set in drastically different lighting truly emphasizes a difference in the tone of the scene.
In conclusion, the outdoor set for Proof is important to the story and emphasizes Cathy’s inner struggles. When Claire informs Cathy that she is selling the house, it helps the audience feel the punch with Cathy. Seeing the set in opposite lighting designs complements the struggles between Cathy and Hal and drives the point home that things are not always as they seem. Hal clearly underestimated how much like her father Cathy truly is. Cathy as well probably overestimated how much of a connection she had with Hal and how well they knew each other and perhaps was too quick in showing him her proof.