Theatre--Review

Opelousas Little Theatre will continue its production of Proof, David Auburn's Pulitzer and Tony award winning play, June 19 through 21 (7 PM), with a matinee on Sunday, June 22 at 2 PM. Tickets can be purchased at Sebastien Dupre Fine Jewelry (337-948-4367).

I strongly recommend this production to all you theatre buffs, even if you've already seen the Cite Des Arts (Lafayette) version, which just ended [Don Voorhies wrote a useful synopsis and review of it for this blog.].

Briefly, a solitary notebook containing the "proof" of a theorem is found in the locked drawer of the desk of a recently deceased mathematician, Robert, by one of his doctoral students, Harold. Who proved the theorem? Was it Robert, nutty as a fruitcake during much of the time when the proof was presumably written, or his care-giving daughter, Catherine, who had little formal mathematical education?

Elizabeth Satterly (Catherine) was perfectly cast in this lead role, even though she is apparently six or seven years younger than the character. Director Dana Reed was wise in casting a student of the legendary theatre guru, Walter Brown.

Gabe Ortego (Harold), a stalwart of OLT, was convincing as Catherine's first lover and as a mathematical protege of Robert.

Ed Dubuisson (Robert) was very touching and affecting in the pivotal scene where Catherine realizes that her beloved father is mentally incapacitated.

Roxanne Guillory (Claire), Catherine's older sister who is married and not a mathematician, effectively completes the cast in the difficult role of the only "normal" character.

Although I may be putting math-phobes to sleep, I’d like to tack on an addendum to my recent notes on Proof, the current production of The Opelousas Little Theatre. The premise of the play is that a young amateur could prove a major mathematical theorem. If the area of mathematics alluded to in the play is “number theory” the answer is a qualified “yes”. Theorems in this area can be easy to understand- not lots of fancy terms- but devilishly difficult to prove. Here are a couple of such “theorems” – one proved, so it is a true theorem, and one not, so it is a conjecture.

One of the most famous is Fermat’s Last “Theorem” (1637). Here’s what it says. Consider the equation x^N + y^N = z^N where x, y, z, and N are all positive whole numbers (integers). Fermat claimed that if N is bigger than 2, there are no whole numbers x, y and z which will solve the equation. [When N=2 it’s easy, 3² + 4² = 5² . ]

Math historian Howard Eves noted, “Fermat’s Last Theorem has the peculiar distinction of being the mathematical problem for which the greatest number of incorrect proofs have been published.” Of course, the fact that there was a money prize probably led to the enthusiasm with the problem. Anyway, Andrew Wiles proved the theorem in 1993, over 350 years after Fermat claimed a proof.

Christian Goldbach, a minor Prussian mathematician, communicated the following conjecture to Leonard Euler, a major Swiss mathematician and physicist, in 1742.
“Every even integer greater than 2 can be written as the sum of two primes.” Remember a “prime” is a whole number that can be divided only by itself and 1. ‘5’ is a prime number but ‘4’ is not. Example: 60 = 7 + 53 = 13 + 47 = 17 + 43 = 19 + 41 = 23 + 37.

- Hasn’t been proved yet. Maybe that’s what Catherine proved. Have to wait for the sequel.

--Dr. Robert "Bob" Sidman