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Holdren's Vulture review was evidently posted last night but I didn't find it when looking earlier today and only just came across it on the NYMag home page. Eloquently stated and a good read as always.

https://www.vulture.com/article/theater-review-proof-auburn-cheadle-edebiri.html

"If Proof can still sparkle and snap, Kail isn’t proving it. And despite their eminent likability, Ayo Edebiri and Don Cheadle — in the central roles of Catherine and her father, Robert — may even be the wrong actors.

I say “despite,” but the truth is that Edebiri and Cheadle both face a challenge here, one that Kail isn’t helping them to meet with full ferocity: As performers who naturally channel decency, they are not playing nice characters."

...

"Catherine is all defensive spikes, while Robert, both dead and alive, can be withering in his judgment. “Claire’s done well for herself,” he says, in a moment of flashback, about Catherine’s older sister (played by the national treasure Kara Young), a currency analyst in New York who keeps trying to lure Catherine back toward social normality. “I’m satisfied with her. I’m proud of you.” It’s a line that should be intimate and devastating at the same time, but in the overall warmth of Cheadle’s performance, you’d be forgiven for missing it. Surely he could adjust the temperature and focus of the role — and so could Edebiri, who defaults to the kind of outward, slightly floppy self-effacement and internal “I’m taken for granted” chagrin that worked so well for her as Sydney on The Bear. It’s a mode she’s very good at, but it’s not quite enough to juice up a whole play’s engine in the way that it has to here, and Kail isn’t pushing for more oomph. He’s letting both of Proof’s prickly protagonists get too cuddly, and so the tension slackens, air leaks from the seams, and the whole vessel starts to wobble and sink."

2 1/2 starts from NYP

‘Proof’ review: Ayo Edebiri and Don Cheadle star in underpowered Broadway revival

https://nypost.com/2026/04/16/entertainment/proof-review-ayo-edebiri-and-don-cheadle-star-in-underpowered-broadway-revival

"Admirably, hers is a very different portrayal of Catherine than any I’ve seen before. At times, it’s a very moving one. And, while Edebiri’s interpretation won’t please everybody or even gel with all the beats of the play — particularly older sister Claire and new friend Hal’s sexist insistence that Catherine couldn’t possibly be a math wiz — the actress’ sheer modernity helps prevent “Proof” from feeling too retro.

Phew. Because director Thomas Kail certainly isn’t helping her on that front. 

On a bright University of Chicago backyard set by Teresa L. Williams that could be used on dark nights for “Home Improvement Live!,” the man who staged “Hamilton” sheepishly delivers an uninspired checklist of basic entrances and exits while batting away the many artistic possibilities Auburn’s script provides."

Theatermania

Review: Ayo Edebiri and Don Cheadle Try to Solve a Precise but Passionless Proof

https://www.theatermania.com/news/review-ayo-edebiri-and-don-cheadle-try-to-solve-a-precise-but-passionless-proof_1832726/

"Proof is so structurally sound that any production can have an impact, which is both a gift in theory and a potential liability in practice. Both sides of that equation are why Thomas Kail’s current Broadway revival at the Booth Theatre is generally effective, but rarely as emotionally charged as it should be. It is rock-solid in its competence, which is ideal for the newcomers in attendance to see stars Ayo Edebiri and Don Cheadle up close. But those who know how thrilling this play could be will find themselves wishing for Kail to have done anything to test the play’s mathematical precision."

B from Entertainment Weekly

Proof review: Ayo Edebiri plus Don Cheadle equals an intriguing Broadway revival of Tony-winning play

The Tony-winning play returns to Broadway in a star-studded revival directed by Thomas Kail.

https://ew.com/proof-review-ayo-edebiri-don-cheadle-broadway-11949024

"Edebiri, in her Broadway debut, brings forth a winning performance as Catherine. It's clear that she sees the character's many contradictions and embraces them wholeheartedly, often taking casual conversations and turning them on their head with a perfectly-timed cutting remark that makes the entire theater hold their breaths. Still, she remains playful in her portrayal of the flawed young woman too, managing to bring a real youthfulness and vulnerability to her too — especially when paired opposite Young and Cheadle. For all of her tough exterior, Edebiri succeeds in making Catherine a character that you're aware is far from perfect, and yet you can't help rooting for regardless."

Deadline

‘Proof’ Review: ‘The Bear’ Star Ayo Edebiri Serves Up Transfixing Broadway Debut In Mathematical Mystery Play

https://deadline.com/2026/04/proof-broadway-review-ayo-edebiri-don-cheadle-kara-young-1236861306/

"With a rapport that conveys the deep love and prickly exasperation of the father and daughter they portray, Edebiri and Cheadle immediately stake a claim to the stage of Broadway’s Booth Theatre – where the play opens tonight – a claim they’ll share soon enough with two equally fine actors (Jin Ha and the always astonishing Kara Young), all to bring life to Auburn’s extraordinary work that originally debuted on Broadway in 2000 and went on to win both a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize."

The Wrap makes it about the Obamas for some reason

‘Proof’ Broadway Review: The Obamas Deliver Mixed Results With Their First Theatrical Venture

The former president and first lady’s Higher Ground stage an uneven revival of David Auburn’s play starring Ayo Edebiri and Don Cheadle

https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/reviews/proof-broadway-review-obama-ayo-edebiri-don-cheadle/

The Guardian

3 stars

Proof review – Ayo Edebiri struggles but Kara Young soars in Broadway revival

The Bear star and Don Cheadle are lost in a new take on David Auburn's family drama but a standout performance from the two-time Tony winner does some heavy lifting

 

"when the more dramatic, plot-advancing mechanics of the play churn into motion, Edebiri quickly loses her grasp on the performance, devolving into a jumble of stammers and tics that increasingly isolate us from Catherine’s humanity. It is as if she is becoming the living embodiment of Catherine’s most hyperbolic fears about her mental health, a cliche of addled behavior that stands in harsh contrast to the relative plainness and naturalism of Auburn’s writing."

...

"Thank goodness, then, for Young, a late-in-rehearsals replacement who brings a much-needed clarity to this fraught domestic scene. The two-time Tony winner (in back-to-back years, no less) is crisp and legible as the frustrated, guilty Claire, who has subsidized the lives of her father and sister but regrets her absence from the house in the most difficult years. It’s a dialed-in, no-frills performance, which is what the role, and the play, require. She keeps the thing afloat"

Variety

‘Proof’ Broadway Review: Ayo Edebiri and Don Cheadle Lead a Gripping but Oddly Paced Revival

https://variety.com/2026/legit/reviews/proof-broadway-review-ayo-edebiri-don-cheadle-1236723836/

NY Stage Review

Proof: Calculated Brilliance

By Roma Torre

★★★★★ David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize winning play reemerges as a beautifully calibrated study of genius, love and doubt.

https://nystagereview.com/2026/04/16/proof-calculated-brilliance/

 

Proof: 25-year-old Pulitzer Winner Proves to Be Even Better Than Before

By Steven Suskin

★★★★★ Ayo Edebiri heads the cast in Thomas Kail’s production of the David Auburn play

https://nystagereview.com/2026/04/16/proof-25-year-old-pulitzer-winner-proves-to-be-even-better-than-before/

 

NY Times

‘Proof’ Review: Ayo Edebiri as a Math Girl, Interrupted

The actress stars as a haunted genius opposite Don Cheadle as her father in David Auburn’s 2001 drama. This revival, though, exposes the play’s lack of rigor.

"Still, the father-daughter pair does, at least, perform charmingly together. Cheadle and Edebiri are both down-to-earth and unshowy in their clear affection for each other, and they’re warmly believable as parent and child. Cheadle is laid back to the point of liquidity; he’s the only star I’ve ever seen get entrance applause for lying on a love-seat. Edebiri, though, is in another league. At several points, she manages a crucial stage trick: She can seem to shrink, collapsing inward, while the audience registers an expanding sense of presence. It will serve her beautifully in other roles."

...

"With an undeniably balanced Catherine, the play’s core mystery evaporates, and we see the flaws in the script more clearly. A play that I remember as being about thought now strikes me as dangerously lacking in that quality; a character I remember as complicated is, in fact, just a palatable gloss on actual dysfunction."

Culture Sauce

Ayo Edibiri and Don Cheadle scratch the surface of ‘Proof’ (Broadway review)

https://culturesauce.com/2026/04/16/proof-ayo-edibiri-don-cheadle-broadway-review/

"While Young teeters close to the sitcom level with an amped-up performance as the citified outsider and bullying big sister, Cheadle and Edibiri maintain an unnaturally even keel throughout, suggesting neither the flashes of genius nor the extremes of mental illness we keep hearing about."

Three stars from TimeOut

Broadway review: Ayo Edebiri shows her work in Proof

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/broadway-review-ayo-edebiri-shows-her-work-in-proof-041626

"...Edebiri, in her stage debut, really is doing too much, especially at the beginning and the end of the play. She has comic chops and a deeply sympathetic presence, but as a theater performer she is still a little wet; she overplays Catherine’s craziness, and she struggles at times to make her choices seem natural. By contrast, Cheadle’s Robert, the “bughouse” professor who fills dozens of notebooks with gibberish, is at greater ease but sometimes mellow to a fault. The more seasoned Broadway actors have the run of the stage: Ha’s Hal is layered and endearing, and Kara Young—as Catherine’s bougie and bossy sister, Claire, a currency analyst—is terrific as always, spinning out inventive riffs of comedic business while also conveying genuine concern. (Is there nothing the dazzling Young can’t do?) They all have moments, but the equilibrium is off, and the pace lags when Claire is offstage."

Deadline is mostly negative on the play itself

‘The Fear Of 13’ Broadway Review: Adrien Brody Stars In Dark Tale Of Justice So Very Long Delayed

https://deadline.com/2026/04/the-fear-of-13-broadway-review-adrien-brody-1236859531/

"Still, as one judicial delay follows another, our very legitimate frustration with an inhumane legal system begins to feel like frustration with a narrative that mirrors Lucy, Charlie Brown and that ever-proffered football. At the reviewed performance, there seemed to be some exasperated audience “ughs” among intended dejected gasps.

Those pacing blips aren’t the only groaners. The depictions of the baton-wielding, pain-inflicting prison guards might well be accurate to Yarris’ testimony, but onstage they appear like so many outtakes from Cool Hand Luke. (A late-in-coming moment of grace for the most heinous of the guards is as wrong-headed as it is cringy). The jailhouse tropes extend to Nick’s fellow inmates who sing like angels. No, better, like Temptations."

Vulture:

The Fear of 13 Doesn’t Get Far Outside of Adrien Brody’s Head

Lindsey Ferrentino's adaptation of a documentary about the exonerated death-row inmate Nick Yarris doesn't ever become larger than his story, compelling as that is,

https://www.vulture.com/article/theater-review-adrien-brody-on-broadway-in-the-fear-of-13.html

"In his performance, Brody relishes the act of digging into a Philly accent, and of capturing the back-broken physical bearing of a condemned man. That enthusiasm is in many ways valuable. Even in the harshest descriptions of the violence and almost unbelievably cruel twists of fate that Yarris endured (the DNA testing keeps getting accidentally mucked up), Brody lends him a vital indomitable spark. But he’s so enamored with that bravado, that of his character and his own, that he only glancingly finds a dimension beyond it. He was, as is the play itself, repeating a good story but not providing deeper insight, giving us a mythology without a deeper sense of a man."

 

Theatrely

https://www.theatrely.com/post/the-fear-of-13-whose-life-is-it-anyway-review

"I’ve not seen the namesake documentary on which Lindsey Ferrentino’s play The Fear of 13 is based, but reviews of the 2015 film note its “intriguing mystery” (Time Out) and the “riveting” (The Times), “labyrinthine journey [...] about the art of storytelling” (The Guardian) it crafts in telling the tale of Nick Yarris, a Philadelphia native who spent 22 years on death row for a gruesome crime he did not commit. As directed by David Cromer in rare disjointed form, the production which opened at the James Earl Jones Theatre has none of that going for it, save for two game lead performances by Adrien Brody and Tessa Thompson, making their Broadway debuts."

The Wrap's ever contrarian Hofler is positive

‘The Fear of 13’ Broadway Review: Adrien Brody Holds Back to Deliver Big as a Convict in Search of Justice

The true story of Nick Yarris comes to the stage in an absorbing production of Lindsey Ferrentino’s new play

https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/theater/the-fear-of-13-broadway-review-adrien-brody-tessa-thompson/

NY Post: 2 stars

‘The Fear of 13’ review: Adrien Brody goes to prison in a predictable criminal justice schlep on Broadway

https://nypost.com/2026/04/15/entertainment/the-fear-of-13-review-adrien-brody-goes-to-prison-in-a-predictable-criminal-justice-schlep-on-broadway/

"It’s just that “The Fear of 13,” as written, is a lifeless, stuffy and dutiful schlep through years of events, posing an insurmountable obstacle for any actor. What unfolds is little more than a polite novella of narration about a weighty topic: the criminal justice system."

The Guardian: 3 stars

The Fear of 13 review – Adrien Brody and Tessa Thompson lead sturdy, safe Broadway transfer

There’s a strong emotional pull to this fact-based story of injustice, but on stage it’s all a little too polite to truly soar

 

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/apr/15/the-fear-of-13-review-adrien-brody-tessa-thompson

"If the meat and potatoes of Death of a Salesman comes at too high a ticket cost, one needs venture only a few blocks south and a half-block east to get a (slightly) more affordable version of standard-issue Broadway fare. The Fear of 13, from playwright Lindsey Ferrentino, is so earnest and accessible one could almost mistake it for a filmed biopic of the sort that premieres in the fall with hopes of awards attention. Like those films, Ferrentino’s play is sturdy, dependable and mostly unremarkable."

 

Variety

‘The Fear of 13’ Broadway Review: Adrien Brody and Tessa Thompson’s Dynamic Performances Rein in a Tonally Bumpy Play

https://variety.com/2026/legit/reviews/the-fear-of-13-broadway-review-adrien-brody-1236722494/

NY Times: Shaw is negative

Review: ‘The Fear of 13’ Doesn’t Entirely Add Up

Adrien Brody and Tessa Thompson make confident Broadway debuts, but the uneven script makes for a narratively slippery prison drama.

"Ferrentino’s choice to make Nick look like he might be an unreliable narrator thus becomes bizarre; it certainly works against the clearer passions of the documentary. If you don’t know the back story, then the play’s irresolute (and then abandoned) hints that Nick might be untrustworthy create a certain slack tediousness. And if you do know that Yarris was (famously) exonerated, then they feel like time wasted. Ferrentino’s dramatic interpolations, particularly the wan attempt to expand Jacki’s character, sap the directness of the original account, and perhaps even harm it as advocacy."