Word: brecht
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...very idea of the Charles Playhouse staging Brecht's magnum opus, Galileo, might draw a gasp of astonishment. The play requires elaborate production, many large and varied sets, a cast of fifty; and the script makes enormous demands of the actors. But with the help of Tony van Bridge, a fine Shakespearean actor imported from Canada to play Galileo, the Charles production remains competent throughout and occasionally flashes through to brilliance...
...Brecht may have set his play in the seventeenth century, but Galileo's persecution at the hands of the Church remains a thin disguise for Brecht's critique of the Nazis...
After the war and Hiroshima, Brecht revised the play to include the problem of the scientist knowing sin. Brecht also began to portray the great physicist as the great proletarian who unwittingly becomes the leader of the masses. Galileo thus turned into a catch all for Brecht's most important thought during the war years. The result is staggering...
...Brecht divided Galileo into fourteen scenes, beginning with the man's first tinkerings with astronomy and ending with his completion of the Discorsi shortly before his death. The patchwork construction is meant to distract you from emotional involvement lest you miss the lesson of each scene. Happily, Brecht's design falls through, and tension does build...
...defies the authorities and continues his work, until he is finally brought before the Inquisition. At that point, a messenger announces to his disciples that the bell of St. Mark's will ring at five o'clock sharp to signify that at five, the young scientists rejoice. But Brecht has the bell ring at 5:03 to simultaneously shatter their illusions and to show us how even super-men can be late. Thus Brecht toys with the tension build-up to make Galileo as much an anti-hero...