Joe Wright’s hip Galileo is a tonic for those who find Brecht a bore
Life of Galileo
Acritic who shall remain nameless shuddered at the mention of The
Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui when I commended the current revival at the Donmar in passing the other day, insisting that wild horses would never drag her near the play, or words to that effect. I can’t imagine she’s alone in suffering an allergic reaction to the very name of Brecht – so beloved by old Lefties, who will insist on trying to force-feed us his medicinal (and Marxist) brand of improving theatre.
There’s no respite this month; it’s a Brechtian blitz. If you’re not inclined to see Arturo Ui, you’ll probably be thinking “Must we?” about Life of Galileo at the Young Vic; three hours long, with puppetry part of the mix.
But here’s the thing: Brecht’s reputation for being a bit of a bore seems to spur a strenuous desire on the part of directors to ensure there’s never a dull minute. Simon Evans’s Ui is as visually ravishing as it is comically buoyant. Now director Joe Wright – whose hot-shot film credits include Atonement – pulls out all the stops in a technologically whizzy production which, not stinting on spectacle, humour or vivacity, ensures time flies (even during the puppetry).
This is a hip but also rough-and-ready effort to boot the story of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) into the 21st century. Galileo, of course, was the Florentine scientist who confirmed, via home-made telescopes, the now-obvious but then orthodox y shattering truth of Copernicus’ s model of the Earth going round the Sun but recanted it as heresy after a repressive counterblast by a rattled Church.
Snapping bright lights on to mark the harsh scene breaks, Wright lends proceedings the subversive spirit of a “teach-in”, with some audience members clustered in a circular pit at the centre of the auditorium. The enclosing wooden walkway serves as the principal acting area. Above looms a concave dish onto which are projected, Planetarium-style, starfields fit to make Professor Brian Cox giddy. There’s some poundy electronic music courtesy of one half of the Chemical Brothers (Tom Rowlands) and striding about in T-shirt and jeans that would pass muster at a rave is Aussie actor Brendan Cowell as Galileo.
Consult Brecht’s own description of the type he had in mind and you find it fits like a glove: “A powerful physicist with a tummy on him, a face like Socrates, a vociferous, full-blooded man with a sense of humour… favourite attitude: stomach thrust forward, both hands on the buttocks, head back.” And that’s what we get here: impatient, inspiring, lustily imparting knowledge. Which makes it all the more shocking when, having run rings around the fusty, foolish and God-fearing, in the second half, Galileo yields to the Papal command to shut up, a personal calamity (he sinks into self-disgust) and a retreat from social responsibility that Brecht regards as cataclysmic.
Agree, disagree? This isn’t the Gospel according to Bertolt, you see – it’s a welcome invitation to think.