Colin Friels as Galileo. Photo: Brett Boardman
Science versus reason. Dogmatism versus the church. Innovative thinking versus big business. Science versus big business. Time moves on, but doesn’t change things that much as Tom Wright’s fresh and contemporised adaptation of Brecht’s Life of Galileo shows.
The play follows the career of Italian philosopher, mathematician, physicist and engineer Galileo Galilei, an enthusiastic and not altogether scrupulous free-thinker who was tried by the Roman Catholic Church for his radical beliefs in new scientific discoveries. Brecht wrote it in 1938; Galileo lived in the 17th century during the times of the Inquisition. Wright’s adaptation harnesses the vast original into 16 scenes that run for a little more than two hours.
It is played in the round and opens in Padua with Galileo (Colin Friels) trying to persuade his student Andrea of the validity of Copernicus’s new theories in cosmogony (not at all popular with the Church). A male in the original work, Andrea has become a schoolgirl and is played – admirably – by Vaishnavi Suryaprakash.
We are hemmed in, declares Friels’ Galileo, by superstition and oppression. He looks to the skies and the planets (nicely realised through Zoe Atkinson’s set) and so begins the arguments about reason and fear, about our capacity to change our minds, about Faith being replaced by Doubt, about science and religion.
Galileo as brilliant mathematician and intellectual hero, tortured for his beliefs (which he recanted in order to survive) has been the prevailing belief for centuries but director Eamon Flack, together with Friels and Wright, sees him as more complex. To quote Flack: “He is compulsive, like many people are, in the need to understand. To see clearly, to speak and think freely, about the world.”
He was also open to less noble ideas. He didn’t mind pinching another person’s invention – the telescope – and making it his own. “A good little earner” in Wright’s vernacular (and, besides, Galileo needed the dosh to fund his research). He uses the telescope to investigate the planets and make his own discoveries, which put him at odds with his university, consequent funding and the church.
The world in which Galileo lived was just as commercial, just as vibrant, just as corrupt and power-driven as the one we know. The church wielded more power then; now big corporations give it a run for their money. In this production, with its references to university funding and modern technology, its clubs and cliques, it is very recognisable.
Peter Carroll plays his role of Barberini to the hilt and leavens the proceedings with comedic moments. We first meet him as a cardinal, trailed by an adoring (or worldly wise) young woman/escort, who may or may not be the republic’s Grand Duchess (well played by Miranda Parker). Even seasoned theatre-goers will find much laughter and surprise in Carroll’s cardinal disco moves. A couple of decades later, Barberini becomes Pope Urban VIII and, in what is one of the play’s most arresting scenes, we see him change from skinny white human to a pope in all his red and gold, white lace and papal-crowned glory. All the power of the Church, resting in one man. He seems bewildered by it.
Life of Galileo, even condensed, is a wordy play, full of big ideas and themes. It requires and rewards concentration, especially here with this excellent cast headed by the talented and experienced Colin Friels, who is in every scene – optimistic, naïve even, enthusiastic, blinkered, broken, then resurgent.
Act 1 nails it, with the ideas and counter ideas flowing fast, the struggle to fund research, to have new theories examined rather than extinguished; there’s humour in the glitzy world of Rome (all those costumes!) and the Grand Duchess’s bored rock-star/rich girl.
Act 2 falters a little, as if under the weight of its arguments, but it keeps going. The everyman (in this case, Rajan Velu’s Fulganzio) makes his case for the poor people, the merit of virtue, and Galileo refutes it. The church needs the people to be poor and ignorant. We know the Inquisitors are coming, we know Galileo is going to recant. It picks up again with Carroll’s transformation from man to Pope; and in the final scene when Andrea, older and wiser, reappears and, in a wry scenario involving bored security guards, the pair plot to get Galileo’s writings out of the Papal States where Galileo will eventually die, still under house arrest for heresy.
At its heart, Life of Galileo is about the powers that be refusing to believe in something they don’t, or don’t want to, acknowledge and/or understand. How dare Galileo suggest the Earth was not the centre of the universe? To the church of his day, heliocentrism was as outlandish, as heretical as… well, how about climate change? It took about a century for Galileo’s scientific theories to be accepted. What are the chances for our contemporary scientists?
Most of the ensemble play multiple roles. Of those not so far mentioned there is Sonia Todd, who gives us a very believable Vice Chancellor, whose priority is finance in order to balance the books; Damien Ryan as Galileo’s long-suffering friend; one of Damien Strouthos’ many roles is as the ambitious and self-serving boyfriend of Galileo’s daughter Virginia (Laura McDonald.) Jethro Woodward’s sound and Paul Jackson’s lighting are subtle and effective.
In the production, Friels has the last words, and they resonate. So, too does this quote from Flack: “I love how bracing [the play’s] argument about truth is. It presents the most fantastic argument about what a fact is, how a fact comes to life and, how it then lives or dies in the world. It felt refreshing when we’re sort of swimming in so much bullshit at the moment.”
Amen, to that.
Life of Galileo is at Belvoir Street until 15 September.
