I am no expert in plays – neither watching them, nor reading them. Nonetheless, recently I have started to digress away from the monotony of cinema into the profoundly impacting realms of theatre, play and drama. Within my limited exposure, I am braving to write a post about Bertolt Brecht’s play – Life of Galileo. And, of course I do not intend to assess it or gauge it – just to articulate the impact and admiration it has remained in me.

Life of Galileo, from my reading in Wikipedia happens to be one of the most acclaimed works by the genius of Brecht. With this as the background, I intentionally skipped the introduction and directly got into reading the play. This for sure helps me not get more prejudiced by the Introducer’s narrowing views.

Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht

The play starts off when Galileo is already in his grand reputation of being the crowning jewel of Italian Science arena, and is just then exposed to the telescope.

While we know him to have been a courageous scientist who shook the world and abolished heavens, Brecht’s play throws some necessary light on the life, struggles and compromises behind the greatness of the mind and the person.

His struggles against the church, apathy of the society,convulsions in personal life and his compromises, are brilliantly interleaved in a narrative that is smooth as cream, and impacting as a symphony.

The trait of a greatest writer is his/her ability to show how easily we can get transported to the world of the writer riding on the words. Brecht, is a genius in this regard. It was as if I could smell the air from the scenes – such is the expertise of this writer.