Proof by David Auburn was actually a pretty good read. I found it a little difficult to read the play as it was written, though. This is the first play I’ve read that was just kind of written as a play. I had to go back and read a few parts over again when I got off track or forgot that something was mentioned, but reading plays isn’t so bad. I found it hard to get to know the characters too well. Because plays are all dialogue, I never really knew what was on their mind. Anyway, Proof is a play about a young woman who is the daughter of a brilliant mathematician. Her name is Catherine. He is kind of old and not all there in the head. Since he is a little crazy, he doesn’t do work with numbers anymore. He doesn’t really do much of anything except let Catherine take care of him. A few scenes go by, and Catherine’s father is now dead. I caught on to the fact that Catherine is very good with numbers like her father, but I feel like she is hiding it, perhaps because she doesn’t want to be like him. Enter Hal, a quirky nerd taught by Robert (Catherine’s insane father) in the past. He is desperate to find something to prove Robert was sane and still the genius he once knew. He does! He finds a notebook with calculations that could only be done by a genius. Catherine claims it as her own, and no one believes her. Both Hal and her sister completely doubt that she could do those kinds of calculations. She is upset that they don’t believe her. So in the end she has to prove that the proof is her own (oh there’s where the title came from). It was a decent play. I read it with ease and it kept my attention for the most part. If I were to act in it, I would definitely be Catherine’s sister. She plays a small, but still important, part. You don’t ever really get to know her. The only characters you really get to know are Catherine, Robert and Hal. All the others seem to come and go without making too big of an impression. Something the play lacked was really getting into the characters. I read the whole thing and I didn’t really feel like I knew or could relate to any of them. Overall, reading the play was a great experience. I learned how to read plays, how an author can say something is happening in dialogue without making it obvious, and several other things that make a play different than a book. I liked this play in particular because it was about something. It was about math and a proof. I love it when books and movies get straight to the point and this one didn’t really dance around the subject.