By Elise C. Hanson
In Bertolt Brecht’s The Life of Galileo, the characters serve as moving parts in a case study of a complicated figure. Under Jonah Kirkhart’s direction of this piece, boy do those moving parts move. The key factor here is energy, constant and crackling, and in a nearly three-hour play, that energy is very much valued. From the time Galileo (Landon Kraczek), bounds onstage with his pupil Andrea (Jack Gardner), there is an air of driving, perpetual vigor. As the decades of Galileo’s life fly by, the cast—Sydney Vance, Syd Peronnet, Dawn Talkington-Bailey, Miles Broadhead, Emily Tatum, and Hannah Orr—make up a revolving cadre of Galileo’s admirers, colleagues, and enemies as Galileo studies, discovers, plagiarizes, and ultimately recants his theories.
Galileo is a beefy role, reminiscent of the likes of Hamlet in Hamlet or Salieri in Amadeus. Laczekcarries the play along with the winding, tricky dialogue with deft singularity. Brecht’sscript isn’t out to either praise or condemn the character, and that leaves a delicate balance for an actor to find a man within a myth: flawed, failing, and fustian. He is bolstered by a solid supporting cast, all of whom offer unwavering electricity and texture to the piece.
The direction by Kirkhart displays an astute understanding of the script, laying out the material in a way that deconstructs any notions the audience might have had on what sort of story about the famed physicist they were about to witness. Here we see no hero or paragon, but something of a hedonist and a dogged pursuer of scholarly obsessions at all cost. In the end, this Galileo admonishes his pupil—and the audience—to seek knowledge with the express purpose of improving the lives of others, lest the art of science fester and destroy itself from within. The attitude presented by both playwright and director is one that acknowledges a world that requires a capability of change. The result is radically anthropological and deeply humane, questioning this “new age” posited by the resistance of establishment and tradition. Galileo himself is unable to transcend, but perhaps there will be others who can.
The Life of Galileo is well worth attending, as it gives insight to a man who is famous for his contribution to science, but also a peek we get at the human who is Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de’ Galilei. Perhaps The Life of Galileo gives us the chance to explore those human and perhaps undiscovered or undisclosed aspects of ourselves.
ThreePenny Theatre Company presents The Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht.
Parker Theater Studio Space 3601 S State, SLC UT 84115
November 11-19, 2022 Fridays and Saturdays with Saturday matinee at 4:30 PM
Tickets are by suggested donation; suggested amount is $20
Tickets available at threepennytheatre.com
ThreePenny Theatre Company Facebook Page
0 Comments