It seems to be the 400th anniversary of Galileo's proof that the earth moves around the sun, which is one justification for Asolo Rep producing The Life of Galileo. We also find the play plunges us into contemporary concerns about scientific vs. "revealed" truths.
A Bertolt Brecht admirer, playwright David Edgar's recent translation allows us, as well, to view this third version of the play as mirroring its writer's personal as well as polemic concerns, especially in the light of scientists producing the atomic bomb.
I would add another reason to see this production, especially for those of us who love theater itself. Asolo's offering is the first area production in decades to present an epic drama masterpiece by its greatest proponent, Brecht, in true epic-theater form as invented and practiced by his director Erwin Piscator. Galileo's life is their perfect subject.
Though Galileo constantly sought and tried to promulgate scientific truth, he denied it when his life and the recognition and pleasures it afforded were threatened. He's a true Brechtian hero dedicated to making sense of things, not a paragon of virtue.
As Galileo look-alike Paul Whitworth brings out from the start, he's not above "cheating," for he implies he invented the telescope so as to get his lecturer's salary increased. He wants money for more experiments, but he'll use enough of what it takes to stock larder and cellar to satisfy his appetites.
For no fees, he'll teach scientific inquiry to Andrea, son of his outspoken and worldly wise housekeeper Mrs. Sarti (Carolyn Michel,
whose performance suggests unspoken depths). Yet he refuses to satisfy his university's Bursar (Douglas Jones, properly puffed up) with any pursuits aimed at marketable results. He's at his most insensitive toward his simple, pious daughter Virginia (compelling Hannah Rose Goalstone), ruining her chance to wed aristocrat Ludovico (Ghafir Akbar, playing torn but practical).
The Life of Galileo teems with arguments and debates regarding science, politics, religion and ethics. The central conflict is between science and its inductive kind of reasoning from observation of phenomena as opposed to divine authority that dictates deduction from faith-based, as well as, long-held general principles.
In the play, Galileo constantly tests scientific principles, such as the laws of falling bodies. (James Clarke, solid as the scientist's lens maker, Federzoni, scores with a fine humorous take on observations of a needle floating.) But after Galileo proves with a telescope that the earth moves around the sun, neither his former Medici patron (Kip Taisey, breezy) nor Catholic Church prelates will accept his strong pleas to see for themselves. (Whitworth manifests total exasperation.)
A devastated elderly Cardinal (Don Walker in a wrenching cameo) indicates the tremendous impact Galileo's proof could have on not just scientific and philosophic reasoning but the very notion of one universe with man and earth put by God uniquely at its center. A Cardinal Inquisitor (Jason Bradley, threatening) in symbolic red seems to lurk in shadows from Padua to the Vatican. But a Little Monk (Sam Osheroff, thoughtful though devout) remains with Galileo's steady adherents, excited by the possibilities of doubt. Each exemplifies the times and often places and stages of action denoted by projected legends that typically mark episodes of epic theater.
Galileo's spirits, buoyed when scientist Cardinal Barbieri becomes Pope (exemplified by Doug Jones impressively donning rich garb), are dashed in the political atmosphere of the Vatican. The Catholic leader plays it safe by allowing the Inquisition to show Galileo terrifying torture instruments.
Galileo recants (document projected), allowing him enough amenities to live out of the public eye. Brecht treats his later days dispassionately. We are to think about the meaning of his life, not empathize with a tragic personality.
We also find that the scientist kept working. He wrote his observations and proofs. (Flash of The Discursi.) Former student
Andreas smuggles Galileo's treatises on the universe and its laws out of Italy. Like epic theater, Galileo's findings would become an engine of change and transformation.
Director Michael Douglas Edwards, with set and costume designer Clint Ramos, follow Piscator's lead in staging. Since the physical theater is considered as a machine, they expose its workings.
Projected overheads sometimes substitute for scenery (e.g., strip of angelic fresco for the Vatican). Dan Scully's upstage projections include mathematical computations and scientific schema that may illuminate or else perplex enough to make us inquire further into their meaning.
We are challenged as well by songs interrupting the action, so that we won't be swept up in emotion. Director Edwards links the dancers-commentators in black to introductory and final appearances of the entire cast. This might be considered an anti-Aristotelian beginning, middle and end.
Whereas Piscator championed harsh or natural lighting, Peter West stresses darkness (here, unexpected but metaphoric in traditionally depicted "sunny Italy") and spotlights specific personae and actions. In this regard, a most effective scene puts in pools of light Galileo in suspense to one side, a central closed red door behind which Inquisitors deliberate his fate, and Virginia fervently praying for her father on the side opposite him.
The epic idea is retained by the light in any case not being realistic. Nor is scenery. Furniture and props are minimal.
A mixture of modern dress and (mainly for clergy) costumes from Galileo's era signifies the dialectic nature of epic drama. It also hints the play's debatable subjects and ideas belong not just to the past but present leading to the future. We not only observe scientific vs. religious beliefs, for example, but scientific findings challenged by affected political, economic and social forces.
The Life of Galileo is a play made to make us think. That's not always easy on us if we ask only light entertainment or emotional engagement from the theater. But there's pleasure to be had from learning, from seeing things in a different light. Maybe from pursuing or questioning ideas further. In these regards, Asolo Rep is sharing with us a touch of what Galileo must have experienced when first he saw the sky through a new telescope.
