On Stage: Performing Arts at our Oneonta Campuses by Rachel Frick Cardelle

‘Proof’: Sibling Rivalry, the Mysteries of Science and Black Cat Energy

David Auburn’s “Proof” premiered in 2000, capturing the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play in 2001. Fortunately for me (and this community), 20 years later it also captured Jessy Gardner’s imagination as a freshman at SUNY Oneonta and now, as a senior, she is directing the play at SUNY. Every year, the Mask and Hammer Theatre Club at the university gives one junior or senior student the opportunity to direct a play, and this year Jessy was chosen. In getting ready to write this column, I spent time talking one-on-one with Jessy, attending a rehearsal, and interviewing the cast and crew. As always seems to happen, I learned from and enjoyed both the show and the students.

The show itself depicts two sisters, Catherine and Claire, dealing with the death of their father, Robert, a genius mathematics professor at the University of Chicago, who dies in his 50s after a lengthy battle with mental illness. Also in the play is Hal, formerly Robert’s graduate student, now a member of the mathematics department. Hal revered his former mentor and is dealing with his own grief by working to elevate and capture all Robert’s work so that his legacy will live on.

When Jessy and I sat down to talk, I began by asking her what had led her to want to direct a play. Early in her career at SUNY Oneonta, she told me, “I had auditioned for “Sweat” for the role of ‘Jessie’…but I did not get the role. …I remember going into Drew’s [Kahl, SUNY O faculty member and director of “Sweat”] office and I asked him about the try-outs. ‘What did you like about my audition? What didn’t you like? What were you looking for? How can I improve?’ As you should…student to professor. In the real world, it might not be as simple as that, but I’m always looking to learn and to grow here. This is the greatest place for it. … He said, ‘You weren’t quite what I was looking for, I was looking for qualities A, B and C …I liked the choices you made in your audition, though, you seem to have a directorial mindset.’”

Jessy went on to tell me about all the experience Prof. Kahl has as a theater director and that hearing him say this, given all his experience, made a real impression on her.

“So hearing that from him sparked something in me… I’m like, ‘there’s more to this than acting?’ which I already knew, but, ‘I can do more than acting? Can I broaden my horizons here?”

Since then, Jessy has acted, run the sound board, done sound design and been a wardrobe supervisor.

When I asked Jessy about being a student directing students, her response indicated that she had thought about this as the director, but also has considered what it must be like for the actors and crew members she was overseeing.

“There is a bit of a power dynamic. There’s a big difference between student-director and student-actor, and professor-director and student-actor. They’ve got years of experience on me. They’ve got degrees upon degrees. … I’m still a baby compared to them as a director. … I’m still learning; I’m still growing. This is a great place to do it, yes, but there are certain things that I have to stay conscious of. Like, we are all students. I have to make sure that I am respecting their time, their classes, their need for a break. These are my peers. … These are the people I have in class, this is how we are in class. This is not class. This is my show; this is our project. We need to work collaboratively; we need to have respect for each other. You’re being very vulnerable in this play as an actor, as a character. I’m going to respect that vulnerability. You also need to respect me as the director. I’d like you to sit here and move here and here’s why. I always explain why…We talk about it, this is why you do this, here’s why I need you to do this; here’s the image I’m trying to create….With a professor that’s different. They’ve got years of experience. They’ve got more authority. They are your professors; they are your teachers… that’s what I’m navigating right now.”

Jessy’s reflecting on what she is navigating reminded me of the saying that it can be difficult to speak truth to power. While I don’t dispute that, I do think that what Jessy or any student director faces is that it is also often difficult to speak “truth” to one’s peers. Not that Jessy, her cast, or crew gave me any sense that their process has included a lot of internal conflict. Having seen the quality of their rehearsal, though, I am confident she has had to set a tone that encourages hard work and had to give difficult guidance to her fellow students in a way that respects their vulnerability, as she said, while also implementing her vision for the show.

When I met with the cast and crew, there were two themes in the play that had struck me, which I wanted their perspective on after having worked with the material so intensely.

First was the sibling relationship in the play. Claire, the older sister, has moved to New York and while she financially supported her younger sister and father, she left his caretaking to Catherine. As the two sisters navigate life after Robert passes, I found myself recognizing some of the tensions they had and related on a personal level to the younger sister’s irritation. So I asked the group if they, too, recognized those tensions from their own lives. All of them did.

Jess [Mulholland], as the oldest of four siblings, appreciated how Megan’s performance brings a sincerity to Claire and makes the audience understand her frustrations.

“Over the show…watching it, and Megan’s performance, I have become a Claire-apologist. …I really like a line in Act 2 where Catherine says, ‘You f__ing physicists don’t know how to think; I have to come here and I have to fix everything.’ And I really love that line.”

Ethan [Medved], as the youngest of four, said he relates strongly to Catherine.

“I relate to Catherine because I’ve struggled with a lot of things … I relate to that feeling of nobody really understands, nobody in my life really understands, and I’m like, stop it, don’t try to give me advice on something you don’t understand.”

Others, like Marissa [Marinick], who is a triplet, and MJ [Sprague], who is the youngest of two but whose brother “tends to get into mischief,” found themselves relating to both characters. Marissa added, “I feel like the sarcasm of Catherine, that’s me, and the black cat energy of Catherine, that’s me. But my sister has the smarts of Catherine. I can get the sister dynamic.”

Megan [Dwyer], who is an only child, said that even without siblings, she found a line that Robert says to Catherine, “… ’I’m satisfied with Claire; I’m proud of you.’ Such a heartbreaking moment. I feel as though that’s going to kill some older siblings in the audience to hear that!”

The second theme I wanted to explore had to do with the opening scene, in which Catherine celebrates her 25th birthday and reflects with her father on the fact that by age of 25 he had done his most important, ground-breaking work. Growing up I had gotten it into my head that by the age of 25, I would have the whole “life” thing figured out, but more than three decades later I’m still figuring it out. So I asked these students how old 25 seemed to them and if they had an age in mind when they’d have life figured out. Here’s an abbreviated version of the conversation:

Jessy started with, “I’m 20. Twenty-five seems so old, but there are people in our program who are doing our shows who are 25, 26, 27, 28 and they seem real adults to me, at least!”

“It’s scary because I’m 21 right now and 25 is not that far off from me, but it still seems like a mile away, but it’s scary … it seems so far away but I know it is very, very close,” Marissa chimed in.

“I’m turning 20 in a week and, like Marissa says, it’s weird because I know 25 is soon. When I meet a 25-year-old, they seem fully grown, but I know they are probably feeling the exact same way I am feeling right now, just with more craziness in their minds, more ideas. … It used to be that I thought by 18 I’d have everything figured out, but now I think that by the time I’m 30, I’m sure. And even then, we’ll see,” Jess added.

Megan reflected, “I always felt like I would have my life figured out by, like, 20, and I’m about to turn 20 in January. …I’m just now getting used to myself as a person. You get out of that weird, ugly middle-school phase, where everything is terrible in your life, and you get into high school and everything is still terrible, but I’ve thought by now I would have an idea and be set in my plans and I’m not.”

“That’s okay, I’m graduating and I have no clue what I want to do!” Marissa reassured her.

Then, as the consummate director, Jessy pointed out that Robert has a line in the play about your 20s, and she prompted MJ to share the line. “Life changes fast in your early twenties and it shakes you up. You’re feeling down. It’s been a bad week. You’ve had a lousy couple years, no one knows that better than me. But you’re gonna be okay,” MJ quoted.

And that seems to be a strong part of the message this group and its director are sending. They all agreed while the topics of death and mental illness that “Proof” deals with are difficult, the play itself is healing. I certainly found it so. I also appreciated getting to speak to a young woman who took not getting a role she wanted as an opportunity to learn and expand her horizons, and who at every turn in our interview seemed to appreciate those around her, whether they were faculty or peers. Likewise, interviewing the larger group always gives me fresh ideas, whether on aging, mental health, or my siblings’ perspectives. And I’m going to make a real effort to begin to work the term “black cat energy” into my conversations.

“Proof,” directed by Jessy Gardner, plays at SUNY Oneonta’s Hamblin Theater with shows at 7:30 p.m. October 24-26 and at 2 p.m. October 27. Tickets are $3.00 with a SUNY Oneonta Student ID and $8.00 general admission, with proceeds going to Mask & Hammer Productions.

Next up: Hartwick College presents “Antigone,” November 6-9.

Rachel Frick Cardelle covers performing arts at SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College.