PROOF, an award-winning drama which questions the truth behind relationships, is to be staged at the Daylesford Theatre later this month.

The highly-acclaimed piece by American playwright David Auburn won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for Best Drama, in 2001. It will be released later this year, as a feature film starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins.

" is a play about people," explained Nigel Kermode, who plays Robert, a 55-year-old mathematician in the Bermuda Musical & Dramatic Society's (BMDS) production.

"As much as anything else, it's a play about anybody who's been in a situation where they're uncertain about whether they absolutely know anything about somebody ? does he like me? Does he love me? What does he feel about me?

"It's about human relationships. Even parents and children are likely to have some sympathy for it. It's been billed as a play about a mathematician but it has nothing, really, to do with mathematics." looks at the relationships between four characters ? Robert, his daughters Catherine and Claire, and Hal, a graduate student. The tale tells how Robert, a brilliant mathematician, suffers a mental collapse and is cared for by his daughter, Catherine. Robert's experience is not dissimilar to that of Nobel Prize winning mathematician, John Nash, whose real-life afflictions were portrayed in the Oscar-winning film, .

"In a very fundamental way, it is the John Nash story ? a brilliant man does wonderful things in his early youth, and then falls into this sort of mental collapse," Mr. Kermode agreed. "When the action in the play begins, you see Robert with his daughter Catherine.

"It's only as the action develops that you realise the play moves between two different time frames ? there's the present, in which Robert is now dead and the two daughters are together, and then there's the past in which we see Robert with Catherine. In both of those time frames you see Hal ? as a young graduate student writing his Phd and as a professor teaching mathematics at the University of Chicago. (The centre of) the story is the day that (Robert's) funeral is to take place. It's then they discover a notebook in which this remarkable mathematical proof has been written. The question is, who wrote it? Was it the father, now deceased? Or was it the daughter, Catherine? Did he write the proof in a moment of lucidity? Or is it she who has written it?"

In this manner, the play raises a number of questions about the relationships of its characters, the actor said.

"It (raises a question considered by) all parents: 'Whether their children will be like them and accomplish the things that they never could'. It looks at how all children worry that they may be like their parents, with all that that might entail.

"Catherine worries that, because she is a spectacularly brilliant mathematician like her father, does that mean she will fall the same way? Interestingly enough, it's kind of a feminist play as well.

"The assumption is that all the great mathematicians are men and the fact is, there very few women who've done things in the world of mathematics. But what the play is saying is that doesn't preclude the fact that there could be that spectacularly brilliant woman who can see the evidence of mathematics.

"The play revolves around this idea of exploring the relationships between father and daughter, between the two sisters ? they're completely different. Catherine stayed at home and looked after father. Her sister Claire left home and became a currency analyst ? and between the fourth character, Hal, and how his relationship develops with Catherine.

"It's a very tight play. It's very much about human relationships ? can you prove that you love somebody? Can you prove that there is a relationship or love between the two sisters? Can you prove that Hal is really there because he likes Catherine? Or is he there because he's trying to look through the notebooks to find something that he can discover and become a great mathematician himself? Can you prove that Catherine is not going to be like her father, that you won't fall into this mental collapse?

"It's a beautifully written play. It really is a most engaging piece of writing." According to Mr. Kermode, the "super" cast includes Lizzy Dunton as Catherine, Doug Jones as Hal, and Vanessa Gray as Claire. It is to be directed by Ron Campbell. marks Mr. Kermode's first time on stage since Yasmina Reza's which he performed with thespians Richard Fell and Gavin Wilson for the Bermuda Festival of the Performing Arts in 2001.

"I did a lot of drama when I first came out to Bermuda in September of '78 but in the last few years I've done very little," he said. "The pressure of work and a whole series of other things have meant that I haven't been able to be as involved. Then quite by chance, I looked at the BMDS web site, saw that this was on, thought it looked interesting and gave Ron a call. He very kindly gave me the script. I read it and fell in love with it immediately.

"I think it's the sort of play that would lead most people to think, 'There's a lot here for me'. There's a lot to provoke thought. It's not a comedy by any means but it's funny at times. There's a humour that comes out of the humanity.

"Equally, it's a very poignant play. It's a memory play in a sense ? we are in the present remembering a father at a crisis time in the life of the family. And that particular moment, I suppose like most crisis points in family life, that's when the truths start to kind of come to the surface."

q will show at the Daylesford Theatre Monday, April 11 through Saturday, April 16, at 8 p.m. Admission is $20. Tickets are available at the box office Monday, April 4 through Friday, April 8, between 5.30 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. Tickets are also available at the box office on performance nights between 5.30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tickets will be available online from April 4, at www.bmds.bm. For more information, or to make a credit card booking, telephone 292-0848.