Excerpted from the review by Robert L. Daniels

Monday, August 8, 2005

Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey hits a midseason peak with a stunning presentation of rarely produced Bertolt Brecht drama "Life of Galileo." First produced in Zurich as "Leben des Galelei" in 1943, Brecht's bioplay made its U.S. English-language debut four years later in thesp Charles Laughton's adaptation. In John Willett's freshly accessible translation, the episodic drama emerges as fluid theater, framed by director Joe Discher as a sprawling historical pageant...

...Sherman Howard offers a most persuasive performance as the persecuted astronomer and physicist at odds with public opinion. As a teacher in pursuit of intellectual freedom, he projects considerable warmth and wisdom as he demonstrates to an eager young student his theory of the revolving sphere that is the earth.

Thesp also mines the brittle humor of Willett's palatable version. Howard frames his portrait with a gruff geniality and a robust sense of purpose. Bent with age, his final moments as the wise scientist battling failing eyesight offer a telling portrait of personal satisfaction and ultimate success.

There is a vivid dramatic unity among the many finely tuned perfs, including several players who effectively double and triple in roles.

The colorful and versatile cast includes Michael Stewart Allen as the passionately supportive Little Monk, Richard Bourg's sympathetic cardinal who becomes an edgy pope, Derin Altay's bossy and skeptical housekeeper and Edmond Genest as a steely inquisitor. One can nearly hear Robert Hock's bones rattle and creak as the doddery old Cardinal.

Scenes are linked by narrator Jessica Ires Morris and strolling balladeer Jay Leibowitz, whose street songs define a sense of time and place.

James Wolk's functional and flexible stage design of scaffolds and stairs leads from Galileo's study to the streets and palaces of Venice and Rome. Many of the costumes boast an earthy realism, while the vestments and robes of clerics are elegant. A sharply defined lighting design softens much of the action with a weathered sense of time and place.

© Reed Business 2005

Universal Questions: Drama depicts the struggles of Galileo

Monday, August 8, 2005

By Peter Filichia

There are none so blind as those who will not look through a telescope.

That's shown in one of the most fascinating scenes in "Life of Galileo" -- though there are many more in the excellent production at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey in Madison...

...Galileo, as wonderfully portrayed by Sherman Howard, is at first a bit bemused by their protests. He knows that the trio need only to step up to his telescope. Just one look, that's all it will take, to prove new fundamentals to the Fundamentalists.

But all refuse. One of the prelates says absolutely nothing, while the other two cite chapter and verse as to why Galileo cannot be right. "Just look through the telescope," Galileo repeats, now sounding closer to exasperation. As he hears such lines as "Truth might lead us anywhere" and "Does mankind have to understand everything?" he winds up losing his cool. Not immediately, for Howard knows he'll be more effective if he raises his own body and mental temperature degree by degree.

Those who think of Brecht as simply a didactic agit-prop dramatist will be pleased to find he wrote "Life of Galileo" in a more conventional playwriting style. He does maintain his trademark practice of introducing each scene with a quick synopsis of what will happen in it, but here he did it with music, and not just dialogue. For this production, Jay Leibowitz, the able ballad singer, provided the catchy music in collaboration with Joe Discher.

That's not all Discher did. As one of the finest directors in the state, he stages the first act of the play with the urgency of a "Law & Order" episode. Then he shrewdly turns down the pace to mirror the more disappointing times in Galileo's life. There is, however, nothing at all disappointing in the way that Howard plays them. He ages himself brilliantly, adopting a squint and a smile that suggest he's trying hard to mask his pain. That discomfort doesn't merely come from old age, but also from the frustration of not emerging victorious in the battles he expected to win.

The rest of the 23-member cast is exemplary. Robert Hock plays a university curate with the accomplished elocution of the well-educated. As Galileo's daughter, Justine Williams shows the agony of one torn between her father and the church. Robbie Collier Sublett is Andrea, Galileo's pupil who shows his growth in becoming an important astronomer in his own right.

Special commendation to Derin Altay, whose accomplished performance as Andrea's mother belies the fact that she stepped in at the last minute, when the actress originally assigned the part bolted to join "The Sopranos." Altay has the world-weariness of a practical woman who wishes that Galileo would concentrate on earthly matters rather then celestial ones.

"Life of Galileo" includes issues of church vs. state, and individual freedoms. So though it may be more than a half-century old, it is, sad to say, certainly a play for our times, too.