The Life of Galileo

People's Light & Theatre Company, 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern, (610) 644-3500, through Oct. 15.

At the dead center of Bertolt Brecht's The Life of Galileo is a long conversation between Galileo (Tom Teti), the 17th century Italian astronomer, and a "Little Monk" (Benjamin Lloyd). It's a crucial scene in the play, and it's also a turning point in the current production at People's Light & Theatre.

Clavius, the official papal astronomer, has just declared that Galileo's findings about the moons of Jupiter, and the Copernican model for the universe that goes along with it, are accurate; at the same time the Church has declared these findings to be heretical, and has proscribed Galileo from either teaching or publishing them.

The Little Monk, who is a scientist by training and inclination, is torn between his religious faith and his conviction that Galileo's science is valid. He's worried, not that he might be tempted to disobey his church, but that the new science might destroy his parents' faith: that they will no longer be able to find in religion any solace for their miserable lives as impoverished peasant farmers.

With Galileo's answer to the Little Monk, the play's tone and subject matter shift noticeably.

At this point, the play ceases to be about the heroic power of science in the face of obstacles. It's not that the forces of worldly authority fail to see; it's that they choose not to see in order to protect their interests. The church and the landowners want the Little Monk's parents to be contented so that they won't mind being impoverished. Science disturbs the status quo; if it's in your interests to preserve the status quo, then you need to suppress science.

From the beginning, Tom Teti succeeds in portraying Galileo's delight in scientific discovery, his whimsical contempt for authority, his gourmand's relish for ideas, his delight in his own success. But after his discussion with the Little Monk, Teti's performance takes off, adding withering contempt and despairing cynicism to his repertoire of moods and actions.

And the whole style of Ken Marini's production similarly changes. Before the "Little Monk" scene, what we see is little more than a large historical pageant. British playwright David Hare's so-called "intimate" translation (receiving its American premiere at People's Light) is not at all intimate; it simply cuts out the traditional mechanical "Brechtian" effects — the slide projections, title cards, placards and choral announcements about the actions of the scene to follow, etc., that Brecht practiced as a director and specifically calls for in his scripts. But the play is still big, with a huge cast swirling on and off the large stage. The costumes (by Marla J. Jurglanis) and the set (a tilted disk by James F. Pyne, Jr., with a catwalk traversing architectural and cosmological murals by Roseanne Haines) are gorgeous. But it all feels like a costume ball, or a made-for-TV historical flick.

But once the political stakes are apparent to the audience and to the characters, the whole feel of the staging becomes more severe. Scenes begin and end with harsh sound effects and music, as though the lessons each scene teaches, and the characters' options, are slamming shut. Marini starts pulling out some Brechtian staging tricks (such as scene changes under work lights). And the costumes become not merely pretty; they are signs of the power and authority of the people who wear them — particularly in the deservedly famous scene in which the Cardinal Inquisitor (Stephen Novelli) slowly convinces the Pope (Louis Lippa) to bring Galileo to trial, as the Pope is dressed, layer by layer by layer, in the sumptuous and burdensome silk and cloth-of-gold mantle of his papal authority.

The play is still long, talky and laboriously self-explanatory. But, like Galileo explaining the Copernican system to his housekeeper's son, it forces us to see with new eyes, and to understand: not how wonderful science can be, but how dark, cynical and self-serving the world — including the world in which science operates — really is. Galileo's wide-eyed daughter (Mary Elizabeth Scallen) withers before our eyes into his jailer; her wealthy fiance (Dan Olmstead) reveals himself to be more in love with his landowner self-interests. And Galileo himself learns painfully — and teaches his protege Andrea (Robert Christophe) and us — not to trust in heroes.

Marini's production had (by opening night, at least) still not found its rhythms; the stage, for all the people crowding it, still felt a little empty. And the Carnival scene, despite Jurglanis' fabulous masks and puppets, was almost incomprehensible.

But thanks (no doubt) to the director's vision, to the translation (which trims the final scene, in which Andrea smuggles Galileo's Discorsi out of Italy, of some of its mawkish optimism), and to Tom Teti's relentlessly unsentimental performance, we leave after the long and grueling performance newly able, and newly willing, to see.

— Cary M. Mazer