David Auburn may be the only theater artist alive to claim mid-century mathematician G.H. Hardy as a muse. Reached by telephone, the author of the Pulitzer-winning Proof pulls up a quote from Hardy’s 1940 tome A Mathematician’s Apology on his computer and reads it to me: " In a good proof, there’s a very high degree of unexpectedness combined with inevitability and economy. . . . The weapons used seem so childishly simple when compared with the far-reaching consequences. But there’s no escape from the conclusions. " So who knew math isn’t just supposed to be correct, it’s supposed to be surprising and sleek? Yet as Auburn goes on to say, " It’s kind of fascinating, because that’s a good description of a good story. "

Auburn’s own successful, Chicago-set story opened at the Manhattan Theatre Club in 2000. From there it moved to Broadway, where it won a number of awards, including Tonys for him, director Daniel Sullivan, and actor Mary-Louise Parker, who originated the central role of Catherine, a troubled young woman wrestling with the legacy of her father, a mathematical genius who went nuts. How much of his ability, and his instability, did she inherit? In the course of the play, Catherine struggles with that question as well as with a condescending older sister, Claire, and a lesser math geek, a former student of her father’s named Hal in whom she entrusts a secret of which he seeks " proof. " The national-touring production of the play, which features Falcon Crest star Robert Foxworth as father Robert and Chelsea Altman as Catherine, brings its slide rule, pocket protector, and other mathematical accouterments to Boston’s Wilbur Theatre beginning this Tuesday.

Of course, Proof is not really about math. The 32-year-old Auburn, who majored in English literature and had written only one previous full-length play, cheerfully admits that what he knows about that subject is " about as much as is in the play, which means not very much. I learned a lot about the world of mathematicians to do the show, and I spent a lot of time with mathematicians, but in terms of actual mathematics I know none. "

Why, then, did he choose this particular world in which to set the play? " I started with this outline of a family story about two sisters and about someone who was worried they might inherit their parent’s mental illness. I just went looking for the right milieu, and that seemed to fit for several reasons. One was that I thought the authorship of a mathematical proof could be called into question in some interesting ways. And the fact that a number of well-known mathematicians have suffered from mental illness allowed me to put the two ideas I had started out with together. The third reason was that it seemed like a fascinating subculture that might be unfamiliar to audiences and interesting for people to see on stage. It’s a very competitive, eccentric field and one that I think produces a lot of drama. "

Then there’s the element of creativity in math, which makes it a good stand-in for art. " Apparently, " Auburn explains, " there’s an æsthetic dimension to doing mathematics that’s very important, and mathematicians strive for the same kind of simplicity and beauty and elegance that any other artists do. "

But if math was terra incognita to the playwright, academe was not: a University of Chicago grad whose father was a professor and then an administrator there, he is married to a Williams College history professor. And there are reasons other than Auburn’s not exactly being John Nash behind the artful dodging of heavy-duty math in the play, which the author acknowledges is, on one level, a whodunit. " In part the play is a mystery about the authorship of this proof. So I found I was constrained as to how much information I could put in the show. Too much talk about the actual proof would give away the mystery. A lot of writing the play was a balancing act between putting in enough information so that the world was realistically portrayed but not so much that the plot was blown. "

Anyway, as the guy says, Proof is not about math. " The question in the play about what you inherit from your family and what potentially might be troubling about that or hopeful about that is something most people deal with in some form, regardless of the circumstances of their professions. " As for the double-edged title, he concedes that " in the play there are two kinds of proof. One is the rigorous, mathematical proof that Hal is interested in looking for. And then there’s the more generalized human kind of proof — the kinds of evidence that we look for in our everyday dealing with people. And I think the problems in the play happen when those two kinds of proof get confused. "

Proof is at the Wilbur Theatre January 29 through February 10. Tickets, at $25 to $67, are available at the Wilbur box office or through Ticketmaster at (617) 931-2787.