The fledgling Salerno Theatre Company says the Pulitzer-winning drama about a mathematician and his daughter is the right play at the right time.
By MARTY CLEAR
Published June 10, 2004
[Times photo: Joseph Garnett Jr.]
Melanie Graham (Catherine) and Mike Mathews (Hal) rehearse their roles in Proof.
TAMPA - Considering that Salerno Theatre Company wants to concentrate on musicals, it's kind of odd that its second show is Proof.
David Auburn's play, which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony Award for best play in 2001, couldn't be further from the raucous or lavish musicals Salerno plans to make its hallmark. The company's first show was Li'l Abner. Damn Yankees and Jekyll & Hyde also are slated for the inaugural season.
But Mike Mathews, one of Salerno's two owners and one of the actors in Proof, said performing the substantial and contained drama makes a lot of sense now. It gives the fledgling theater group a chance to see some profit.
"Obviously, dramas are a lot cheaper to produce than musicals," he said. "And the fact that the movie with Anthony Hopkins and Gwyneth Paltrow is coming out (later this year) doesn't hurt either."
Auburn's play, which has only four characters, revolves around 25-year-old Catherine, who has sacrificed much of her life to care for her father, a mathematical genius who slowly has been descending into dementia. After his death, she examines his notebooks, full of arcane mathematical equations, hoping to discover whether she stands to inherit his genius or his mental illness. Mathews plays Hal, the former student who shows up to root through the notebooks and develops a relationship with Catherine.
Mathews admits that the play is dark, and that the backdrop of esoteric math formulas might turn off some potential ticket buyers. But at its core, he said, Proof is really about familial relationships and the human condition, and the play, its themes and even its mathematical milieu can appeal to a wide audience.
"When people ask me what Proof is about," Mathews said, "the first thing I ask them is, "Have you seen A Beautiful Mind?"'
Mathews and his fiancee, Lisa Smith, caught Proof on Broadway.
"We were in the seventh row, and it was awesome," said Smith, the co-owner of Salerno Theatre Company and the producer of Proof. "I like it because it's different than anything I've ever seen."
Smith admits she's a relative newcomer to theater, and that even as a producer she learns a lot from the Blake and Plant high school students who are working backstage as volunteers. But she said she has been impressed by the work of director Richard Coppinger - one of Tampa's best-known directors (and actors) - and by the four-person cast (Mathews, Melanie Graham, Mark Ruane and Cherie Jacobs).
All four have some colorful credentials. Graham trained with actors at the Royal Shakespeare Company; Mathews is a stage veteran and the student of musical theater legend Peter Palmer, who played the title role in Li'L Abner's Broadway debut; Ruane portrayed a pro wrestling owner on Monday Night Nitro; and Jacobs is a former WFLA-Ch. 8 reporter.
PREVIEW: Proof, 8 p.m. tonight and Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Friday Morning Musicale, 809 Horatio St., Tampa. $17 general admission, $14 for 65 and older. Go to www.salernotheatre.com or call 813 631-9430.
