Set against the backdrop of theoretical axioms and the discovery of a potentially historic mathematical proof, David Auburn’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play is an extraordinary story of familial devotion and discord, identity, sacrifice, trust, and the precarious pathway linking brilliance and mental instability.

Catherine has spent years caring for her brilliant but unstable father, Robert, a famous mathematician. Now, following his death, she must deal with her own volatile emotions; the arrival of her estranged sister, Claire; and the attentions of Hal, a former student of her father’s who hopes to find valuable work in 103 notebooks her father left behind. A burgeoning romance and the discovery of a mysterious notebook draw Catherine into the most difficult problem of all: How much of her father’s madness — or genius — has she inherited?