About the work
Bertolt Brecht's „Life of Galileo" was written in Danish exile in 1938-39; a first version was premiered in Zurich in 1943. Brecht thoroughly revised the play after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945 (second, „American" version with Charles Laughton, Los Angeles 1947) and thus created one of the most significant plays on science, power and responsibility.
Plot
Padua/Florence/Rome, 1609-1633. Galileo Galilei, poorly paid as a mathematics teacher in Padua, hears of a Dutch invention — the telescope — and builds his own, more powerful version. With it he discovers the moons of Jupiter and so proves the Copernican world picture. He moves to Florence, to the court of the Medici, in hope of patronage. The Inquisition forces him to silence, but he continues research in secret. His pupil Andrea Sarti believes in him. At carnival peasants and citizens celebrate the „man who moves the earth" — the Catholic Church responds by preparing persecution. Galileo is brought before the tribunal of the Inquisition, shown the instruments of torture, and publicly recants. Andrea is shattered: „Unhappy is the land that has no heroes." Galileo: „No, unhappy the land that needs heroes." In the closing scene the aged, half-blind Galileo secretly hands Andrea his new work „Discorsi", written under house arrest — truth prevails against power.
Cultural significance
Galileo is Brecht's most intellectually dense drama and a formative source for modern „science theatre" (Friedrich Dürrenmatt's „The Physicists", Heinar Kipphardt's „In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer"). Charles Laughton played the English version in Los Angeles in 1947; Ernst Busch and Charles Laughton shaped the role. Brecht's political conclusion — that the scientist bears responsibility for the consequences of his discoveries — became an essential question after Hiroshima. The play belongs to the compulsory canon of German stages.