Monday, October 18, 2004
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UC's College-Conservatory presents the Life of Galileo
By
Kendra Leonard
Between 1938 and 1945, when Nazi Germany had created a new dark age in much of Europe, playwright Bertold Brecht relied upon his art to say what he and others could not. Brecht chose for his story the life of Galileo Galilei, the Renaissance scientist and teacher who was silenced by the Vatican for his apostasy. The resulting work, The Life of Galileo, is a brilliantly worked drama definitely worth a viewing. Conducting experiments and making careful observations from his home in Padua, Galileo finds proof ofthe Copernican theory,which posits that the earth does not revolve around the sun, as the Church teaches, but that the plants circle the sun. This proof is no small matter, for it contradicts Church teachings as well as common beliefs about the structure of the known universe.
The Church is not lenient during these days when religion, superstition, and early modern science existed together in a melting pot of beliefs and suppositions. Galileo is summoned before the Inquisition, a formidable force not unlike today’s Justice Department. The Inquisitors find the learned man guilty of heresy, and though his life is spared, he is sentenced to house arrest, his publications destroyed. However, he continues to conduct his research clandestinely, and his colleagues manage to publish it. When a new pope takes over the throne of Peter in the Vatican, the scientist has new hope, and petitions to have his sentence lifted.
Galileo is no hero in this play; he lies, cheats, steals, and shuns his family in order to keep his pride. Finally recanting his discoveries, he gives in to the very powers he is trying to enlighten. As people have done in all difficult times, Brecht implies, Galileo did bad things just to stay alive and avoid becoming one of the Inquisition’s martyrs. The Church is shown as willing to overlook discovery and knowledge in the interest of keeping its followers down; in a pivotal scene, Galileo and a character known as the “Little Monk” discuss the role of the Church, finding it an egalitarian dictator bent on preserving the status quo at any cost to its members.
In the College-Conservatory of Music production of this play, which opens on October 27, director Michael Burnham looks to Brecht’s text for each and every clue as to how the playwright himself might have staged this powerful work. Recalling Brecht’s desire for audiences to identify with characters rather than actors, the role of Galileo himself is played by some twelve difference actors at different points in the play. The staging of the work, too, draws of the text a rotating set makes a single, complete revolution once during each show.
The Life of Galileo is the first performance in CCM’s new “Dinner and a Show” series. Ticket holders for these special nights will be served a three-course meal at Mick and Mack’s, one of the University’s new MainStreet cafes; get to hear student designers and performers speak about the work to be shown and show models of the stage and set design; and receive a gift bag with coupons, calendars, and other goodies from CCM. Tickets for these great nights out are just $20 for both dinner and the performance, so get yours today before they’re all gone.
Kendra Leonard is an arts historian based in the Cincinnati area.
