The Proof is in the Truth

With David Auburn’s Pulitzer Prize winning play Proof opening tonight in Melbourne, Anna Burgess took time out from a frantic schedule to talk to Coral Drouyn.

Anna Burgess is one busy lady. She’s been touring with Bad Jews right up until this week, and dashing back to Melbourne every few days for rehearsals. Proof isn’t just another show to her, another role; she believes passionately that it has important things to say about family, father-daughter relationships, and mental illness. She plays Claire, the older daughter of a mathematical genius who has died, is concerned that her younger sister Catherine may have inherited their father’s genius …and, with it, his madness. The play was a revelation and garnered the Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize, as well as raising public awareness about the link between genius and insanity, when it hit Broadway.

“When Proof was first produced on Broadway in 2002 and made such a huge impact, mental illness wasn’t something we talked about at length,” she tells me. “There was such a stigma attached to it; people just looked the other way, or refused to see the signs. We knew about ‘insanity’ from an institutional perspective. But depression, anxiety, losing touch with reality… they were all things that happened to someone else, not people close to us.  And although my awareness was growing, it took a tragedy some 15 months ago to really stop me in my tracks.”

The tragedy was the unexpected suicide of Leigh Barker – a wonderful triple threat performer who had only recently added the roles Producer/Director to his list of credits. “I adored him,” Anna says and, in truth, all of us who ever knew him, could say the same thing. “He was one of those rare human beings who could light up your life just with a smile, or a word. I’m still not over it, and still dealing with the guilt of not seeing there was something wrong; not recognising that someone I cared about was in pain.”

Leigh was Anna’s producer/director for the highly acclaimed production of God of Carnage at Chapel off Chapel in late 2014. A few short months later he was gone, and the entire Melbourne theatre industry was reeling.

“In a way,” she says, “Proof is part of my healing, because my character, Claire, is looking for signs of madness in her sister, afraid that shw will find them, but determined to save her. Of course, we can’t actually save anyone unless they reach out to us – but we can let them know we are here, and we’re not going to judge. That is Claire’s problem – her actions are all based on making a judgement that may or may not be true. Is she really caring and altruistic? Or merely manipulative? It’s a very layered role. With Catherine starting to doubt her own sanity, Claire is the only person she has left to turn to”

So important is the theme that new indie theatre company Artefact, producers of this 2016 production, have partnered with SANE, the national charity for Mental Health, in its mission to raise awareness of just how fragile some people are mentally.

“It’s such an important play and it’s great that a new company has chosen to produce it because it isn’t seen often enough professionally, even though both MTC and STC had great productions of it back in 2002.”

Anna is one of those rare creatures, a triple threat who is also very beautiful. Is beauty an asset or a liability? Anna laughs with some embarrassment.

“Well, if it is true, and it’s not for me to judge, I would say that possibly it’s an asset in that it opens some doors for you, but once you step inside the room, it’s your talent that counts,” she says. “But it can also be a liability in that you have to work harder to convince some people that you are serious.”

She has all but given up on the singing and dancing side of her skills. “I just love acting so much that I knew I had to make it my priority. It’s terrifying, but it’s a good kind of terror and I know I’ll be sick with nerves tonight before my first entrance.”

What is it that makes acting so terrifying? I ask her.

“It’s that realisation that you have to give an audience the truth; you have to lay yourself bare. If it isn’t real they won’t believe you, and if they don’t believe you they won’t connect, even if they can’t quite articulate why. You can’t ‘act’ a role – you have to find the truth in the character you are playing.”

Anna takes to the stage tonight, with  Madeleine Jevic, best known for her television work, playing the lead role of Catherine. This is Jevic’s first stage role.

“We’ll both be nervous, and that’s a good thing, “ Anna explains. “It means we have respect for the work and we don’t take it for granted. And hopefully I can support her and play Big Sister off stage as well as on.”

Proof opens tonight, Thursday June 9^{th, 2016}, at The Alex Theatre, St Kilda.