Proof exalts faith: Without each other, we are nothing

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The line between genius and madness is a fine one, explored thoroughly in the fascinating and insightful book Touched with Fire, by Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison, illustrating parallels between intellectual brilliance and abject insanity. Lord Byron, for example, worried that giving up the manic highs of his bipolar illness would destroy his ability to write beautiful poems. More people should read Jamison’s work, or, instead, head to Lewiston to see Proof.

When a play that won a Pulitzer Prize as recently as 2001, and won a “best play” Tony the same year, comes to Lewiston, Maine, theatergoers should sit up and take notice. And when that play comes to Lewiston’s Public Theatre, a gem of a theater, with a growing following that, after a dozen years, is slowly getting the attention of southward-looking Portlanders, all Mainers should sit down in the theater’s cozy darkness and watch.

The play has been advertised as based on the story of the brilliant and crazy mathematician John Nash, played by Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind. That’s not entirely true, but the concept is similar, and there is a twist. Rather than being about the smart-and-crazy Nash type, Proof is about a 25-year-old woman, daughter of the Nash type, worrying about whether she has inherited her father’s gift for math, his insanity, or both.

She is living in her father’s house, caring for him after his madness has made him unable to function independently. In the opening scene, her father tells her she might be fine. After all, he says, “Crazy people don’t sit around wondering if they’re nuts. They’ve got better things to do.”

But, when it becomes clear that her father’s presence is but a vision of a man who’s been dead for a week, whose funeral is scheduled for that very morning, he tells her it “could be a bad sign.”

Proof follows the daughter, Catherine (played by Shannon Emerick), wrestling with memories of her father, Robert (Stephen Bradbury), as she and her sister Claire (Kathleen Ferman) settle their father’s affairs. Into the mix is also folded a wild card in Hal (Jon Egging).

A former student of Robert’s, now established in his own mathematical career, Hal vows to examine all of the notebooks Robert filled during his insanity, looking for small sparks of genius that may have remained in the darkness of Robert’s madness. He also becomes a love interest for Catherine, even as Claire plans for the possible future madness of her sister, who is also a mathematical genius.

In the phrasing of logical mathematics, all are searching for elegance and straightforward life, amid the inelegant lumps of reality. But unlike rational math, Proof plumbs the depths and climbs the heights of human emotion. Powerful rages and the highest elation share stage time with melancholy, inertia, frustration, and loss of hope, all powerfully portrayed by a strong cast.

As should be expected of an award-winning play, the writing is incredible, with nary a wasted word and strong emotional control over the audience at all times.

The blocking makes use of the entire set, an elaborately detailed back-porch environment, solidly built and unchanged for the duration of the show. Body language and facial expression are right on and demonstrative enough that even the people in the rear of the theater can understand.

Emerick plays a passionate, worried Catherine who is in the very early stages of possible mental illness. Her numerous monologues, usually in the form of emotional tirades, are closely controlled to ensure she comes off as the strong-but-bitter, scared-but-cynical young woman the character is. Her interactions with Bradbury are wonderful to enjoy, and her sense of moment and timing are exquisite.

Against Ferman, Emerick moves skillfully through family dynamics and a younger sister’s fight for independence, even as she is unsure of her ability to carry it off. And with Egging, she ranges effortlessly through wariness, puppy love, and affection into outrage at his betrayal, the most egregious thing one intellectual could do to another: expressing disbelief at demonstrated ability. It is a crucial moment, and one she carries powerfully.

At its core, Proof is about faith and trust as much as it is about logic. While scholars can work on the basis of proof alone, and have their minds and careers truly changed by logic, human beings need to be believed in, and to believe in others.

The play explores the relationships between people whose intellectual foundations rest on logic, but whose emotional bases are closer to the heart. It even explains the separation with the concept of “machinery” — Robert’s word for his mathematical mind, distinct from his brain and his body.

And rather than depersonalizing emotion and human interaction at the expense of mathematics, Proof humanizes math and logic, showing how important brilliant, crazy people are to our world.

Proof

Written by David Auburn, directed by Janet Mitchko. With Stephen Bradbury, Shannon Emerick, Jon Egging and Kathleen Ferman. The Public Theatre, Lewiston, through Feb. 2. Call (207) 782-3200.

Scarborough man makes terrorism his business

Published in the Current

David Hunt of Scarborough has taken over an airplane, invaded a day care center, poisoned a town’s water supply and even staged a riot. But rather than staking out his house, law enforcement officials around the country and across the world are willing to pay him for his services.

He also offers his advice on fighting terrorism, though he knows his views are likely to be controversial.

Not only does he advocate going after terrorists around the world and killing them, rather than arresting them, but Hunt also says the federal government isn’t doing enough to actually fight terrorism, preferring to posture and reorganize instead of tackling the problems.

Hunt is a former Army colonel who served for nearly 30 years, much of it in the Special Forces. He served in “everything from Vietnam to Bosnia,” including covert operations in several Middle Eastern countries, according to a recent GQ article.

“I hate when he writes that,” Hunt said, looking at an article by reporter Bob Drury in which a detailed account of Hunt’s dangerous service record is given, including stints in Iran and Iraq. He didn’t serve during the Gulf War, though, as he was stationed in Korea at the time.

Now retired and in security consulting, governments and companies ask Hunt to bring his security know-how to work for them, helping them figure
out how to avoid terrorism, industrial espionage and regular criminals.

“It’s private industry and governments,” who need help with “everything from their intelligence services, training, security,” Hunt said. His company,
D.A.R. Inc., from his first initial and those of his wife and son, has offices in Scarborough and Montreal.

He also trains the Scarborough Police Department’s Special Response Team, as well as other police SWAT teams around the country from time to time.

“I train police for free,” Hunt said. That’s because most police SWAT team members aren’t paid much extra for their service, and “most of the time
they have to buy their own gear,” Hunt said. He doesn’t feel right charging them for training, when they’re already risking their lives for free.

He helped protect the Salt Lake City Olympic Games in 2002, by running a series of drills to test local response.

Hunt and a team of former military special-operations soldiers “took over” a day-care center and “poisoned” a local water supply to show local officials how those types of events would happen, and to demonstrate federal responses.

Immediately after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Hunt was hired by companies that insured airlines and were trying to evaluate security before the hijackings. A study group he assembled included former members of Delta Force and the Navy SEALs, as well as a pilot and police officers. They even had plans to take over a plane – which he did in a drill at Logan Airport several years ago – but those were scrapped, he said.

Bureaucracy in the way
Hunt has his own views on national security against terrorism, and they don’t agree with those of the Bush administration.

The Department of Homeland Security is too big for its own good, but still too small, he said. It includes only 22 of the 44 federal agencies involved in
fighting terrorism, and has no budget. It also is subject to between 50 and 90 congressional oversight committees, and does not include any intelligence-gathering agencies.

“If you’re going to fight terrorism, you have to have intelligence,” Hunt said. Also required is a streamlined government bureaucracy.

“The bureaucracy is still there,” Hunt said. Many government agencies have very old computer systems without even e-mail capabilities, making
inter-agency communication difficult, if not impossible.

Also important is including local law enforcement agencies.

There are over 600,000 police officers in the U.S., and none of them are able to communicate effectively with the federal agencies. “The local guys aren’t in this yet. They feel left out,” Hunt said.

And the U.S. is not actively seeking out terrorists. Hunt said he knows of 14 al Qaeda terror cells in the U.S., six groups in Canada and training camps in
South America. Even in Afghanistan, when U.S. troops had the terrorist organization’s leaders on the run, there were no U.S. soldiers guarding mountain passes over which the leaders escaped to Pakistan, Hunt said. “We let them go,” he said.

The reason, he said, is bureaucratic. There is no one agency and no single person responsible for fighting terror.

The FBI is not the agency to do the job, Hunt said: Terrorism and criminal activity are different.

“Terrorism has to be treated as war,” Hunt said. He advocates killing terrorists, wherever they may be found.

He would have teams stationed all over the world hunting down and killing terrorists. “We need a good terrorist,” Hunt said, to properly fight terrorism.

He worried, though, that the American public may not have the stomach for that kind of effort.

Another possible avenue of attack against terrorism would be the Russian mafia, and the Western companies that support it, he said. The Russians are funneling money and weapons to al Qaeda. They get their money from Western companies willing to pay to get access to the Russian market. Hunt said those companies know where their money goes, but are greedy enough not to worry.

“Bureaucracy is still fighting us,” Hunt said.

CEHS renovation put off a year

Published in the Current

Cape Elizabeth school Board members will put off the renovation of Cape Elizabeth High School for a year if they can strike a deal with the Town Council to approve an expansion to the Pond Cove School.

As part of the deal, the board would like authorization to spend $200,000 for immediate repair work at the high school, including putting a new roof over the gymnasium.

The decision to delay the high school project was in response to pressure from the Town Council to keep costs down and the immediate need for additional space at Pond Cove for the kindergarten.

The high school renovation is estimated to cost $7.5 million.

The Pond Cove expansion, to provide room for the kindergarten and move it out of the high school, is expected to cost $1.5 million. Not doing the work at Pond Cove, however, could end up costing more than doing it because the schools would have to rent portables, board members said at a workshop meeting Tuesday.

“We’d like something approved this spring,” Superintendent Tom Forcella said.

Taking out a bond for the Pond Cove expansion this spring would not cause any real difference in debt service for the schools in the first year, according to Business Manager Pauline Aportria. The school is retiring nearly $116,000 in debt in 2003-2004 and would need to add $117,000 to cover the first payment for the Pond Cove work.

In 2004-2005, the schools will retire $27,500 in debt. Adding the Pond Cove work would cost $143,000 that year. In 2005-2006, the schools will retire $10,000 in debt, but a Pond Cove bond would cost $140,000 that year.

If actual construction did not begin by October of this year, the School Board would need portable classrooms at Pond Cove to handle the kindergartners. Those would cost $85,000 for the first year, including site preparation, and $35,000 each year they were used.

Because the board wants to move the kindergarten out of the high school, they are willing to negotiate with the Town Council about timing of the high school work.

“We’re giving up the rush on that,” Forcella said. “We understand it can’t be done” in the current economic conditions, said School Board Chairman Marie Prager.

Board member George Entwistle said the board should recommend that high school work begin immediately after the Pond Cove work finishes, because some of it deals with safety issues and making the school accessible to the handicapped.

Board member Kevin Sweeney was concerned about putting off the high school renovation for too long, but was willing to wait a year as long as no major problems occurred at the high school.

Prager said the board wants a decision “no later than May,” whether the council votes to approve the project on its own or sends it to town-wide referendum.

“We want them to approve the kindergarten project as immediately as they possibly can,” she said.

Portland cop, Cape resident, faces OUI charge

Published in the Current

A Cape Elizabeth resident who works for the Portland Police Department is facing OUI charges in connection with an accident after a holiday party in December.

Lt. Ted Ross, 42, a resident of Meadow Way, is expected to be charged early next week with operating under the influence after records were obtained by investigators showing he had a blood alcohol level of 0.253 percent, more than three times the legal limit.

Cape Police Chief Neil Williams said he knows Ross professionally, as the head of the local training district for police, and he has been helpful to police in town.

In addition to “heads-up” information about issues of interest, Ross has “assisted us on at least one occasion,” helping police with a resident who was having mental health problems, Williams told the Current.

“Ted was able to come over and talk to him and help us secure some weapons” from the home, Williams said.

Williams would not comment on Ross’ current situation, except to say, “I feel bad for him. He’s a good officer.”

On Dec. 17, Ross attended an open-bar holiday party hosted by Portland Police Chief Michael Chitwood and then went with a Portland police captain and a deputy chief in the department to a bar on Fore Street, according to court documents.

When Ross left the bar, he walked to the police station to pick up the unmarked car assigned to him. As he left, Ross told Capt. Joseph Loughlin he was “OK to drive,” according to court documents.

Loughlin told investigators he always asks people with whom he has been drinking if they are sober before driving, but had no reason to think Ross was drunk.

Ross told investigators he was driving home when his car collided with a pickup truck waiting for a parallel parking space to open on York Street, near the Casco Bay Bridge. The pickup truck hit a Land Rover pulling out of the parking space.

Ross was not wearing a seatbelt and he injured his head and required medical treatment. The other drivers declined medical treatment at the scene, but later sought medical attention.

One of the drivers told his boss immediately after the accident that he thought Ross had been drinking.

Police officers who responded to the collision did not test Ross for intoxication. Jo Morrissey, the public information officer for the district attorney’s office, said there was “no probable cause” to conduct field sobriety tests, and added that officers were concerned about Ross’s medical condition.

He was “bleeding profusely from the forehead,” Morrissey said.

The Portland police internal affairs department executed a search warrant at Maine Medical Center Jan. 27, which obtained documents showing that Ross’s blood alcohol level was 0.253 percent, more than three times the legal limit of 0.08 percent.

Court documents show the investigating officer, Sgt. Jonathan Goodman, had reason to believe Ross had had “at least five drinks” in four and a half hours, and possibly more.

The accident was originally explained as a result of Ross reaching for a cellular phone. Portland municipal employees, including police officers, are prohibited from using cellular phones while driving.

In December, Chitwood made a public statement that there was no indication that alcohol had played a role in the accident.

Morrissey said no other people are being investigated in connection with the incident, either drivers or people who provided alcohol to Ross. “It’s not illegal for a licensed establishment to serve alcohol,” she said. It is illegal to serve visibly intoxicated people, but she said Ross displayed no evidence of intoxication.

Bartenders and wait staff who served Ross alcohol that night told police they did not think he was intoxicated. Court documents show that other police officers, who were not called to the accident, suspected Ross might have been drunk and said so to the officers who did respond to the crash scene.

Morrissey said Ross will be charged “early next week” and is now on paid administrative leave. Ross’ attorney, Michael Cunniff, could not be reached for comment. Cunniff is a former Drug Enforcement Agency officer, who has represented a number of Portland police officers in legal proceedings, including recent allegations of official misconduct.

Schools fear many won’t graduate

Published in the Current

School officials expect that between 10 and 15 percent of the present eighth-grade class, as many as 22 students, will not graduate from high school
without additional help to get them over the bar of stricter requirements set by the state and federal governments.

In a School Board workshop Tuesday, Superintendent Tom Forcella told the board that the Maine Learning Results and the federal No Child Left Behind
Act will prevent students from graduating if they do not meet local assessment standards now under development.

The numbers are estimates, and are based on present Maine Educational Assessment tests, which are one indication of how well a student meets the
Maine Learning Results. Several eighth-graders do not meet standards in math or language arts.

“We have some kids – especially this group in mathematics and language arts – who are not going to make it,” Forcella said.

The School Board expects to request between $35,000 and $40,000 to fund additional help, including computer software and a staff position, for kids
falling behind. There may be additional help during the school year or perhaps summer school classes for those students.

But it is only the beginning.

“We are going to end up spending a lot of money on this,” board member Kevin Sweeney said. The additional help is necessary so the kids are “able to have a shot,” high school Principal Jeff Shedd told the board.

The subject has come up before. Shedd and others have expressed concern about the effects of the legislation on graduation rates, and have talked about ways to bring students up to the level they need to get a diploma.

“We see this as a district-wide issue, not a high school issue,” Forcella said. “Down the road, our hope is to catch kids earlier.”

Some but not all of the students in question are in special education programs, Director of Special Education Claire LaBrie told the board. Special needs kids are not exempt from meeting the standards in order to graduate.

Middle School Principal Nancy Hutton told the board she expects the group at risk will include some students in special education; others who were formerly in special education programs but are no longer; some who are on the “borderline” between needing and not needing special education; and, others who just have a hard time learning certain subjects.

For some it is a matter of what level of achievement they have attained before they enter the high school. In math, for example, anyone starting high school in a math class below Algebra I will “by definition” not have learned enough by the end of high school to meet the Maine Learning Results standards, Shedd said.