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Watching two very different plays this week,
I was struck how both of them touched upon, but didn't entirely
face up to, the same subject: the need for faith in our lives.
Not necessarily religious faith, but the faith in others and
a willingness to act upon what, as the Bible puts it, "we
do not see".
The first play, "Proof" by David Auburn which is
playing at the Donmar Warehouse, has rightly attracted positive
reviews for its lead actress Gwyneth Paltrow. Personally,
I found the performances greater than the Pulitzer-prize winning
play itself. The "proof" of the title refers not
only to the mathematical proof which the heroine may, or may
not, have written, but how she can provide 'proof' to those
that doubt her authorship (and her mental health) and how
they, in turn, can prove themselves worthy of her trust.
Audiences for whom Stoppardian 'too clever
by half' plays are a turn-off need not worry, for there was
scarcely a moment of discussion about the mathematics. Beneath
the fashionably intellectual premise was the far more conventional,
but moving, story of the highly-strung and fragile Catherine
struggling with the possibility that mental instability, as
well as mathematical ability, was an aspect of her dead father's
genetic legacy.
The focus was primarily on Catherine's relationship
with her father (played by Ronald Pickup), caring for him
at the expense of her own life and her university career,
and her search for independence following his death. There
were other themes that could have been developed further,
such as the nature of self-sacrifice and our often mixed motives
when doing good. But we were not encouraged to reflect too
deeply on this (Catherine's older sister, Claire, is portrayed
as the unsympathetic outsider - a delicious performance by
Sara Stewart - even though it is she who provides financially
for Catherine and her father) or, indeed, on any wider issues.
Over at the National Theatre, text and video images appear
across the back of the Lyttleton stage as if on a computer
screen, television monitors are lowered and raised and the
central character dances wildly between scene changes, clutching
her laptop computer. Yes, it's an adaptation of Jeanette Winterton's
"The PowerBook" with Fiona Shaw and Saffron Burrows
among the cast. Another case of 'trendifying' old themes?
Perhaps, but intentionally so.
At first it appears an ultra-contemporary
story of the online fiction-writer who writes to order, offering
her clients "freedom just for one night", the freedom
to be someone in another story rather than their own. The
freedom, of course, comes with a price and the results, especially
in the writer's own life, are not nearly as straightforward
or easily controlled. Amidst the playful (and sometimes pretentious)
portrayals of legendary couples, intercut with the writer's
story, comes the reminder that "there is no love that
does not pierce" and of our need to be able to have faith
in others rather than try control them, or interact with them
from a distance. At least, that was what I took from the performance,
but it's worth judging for yourself...
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