Brecht Collected Plays: 5: Life of Galileo; Mother Courage and Her Children (World Classics) (38 page)

When Does Galileo Become Antisocial?

The issue in Galileo’s case is not that a man must stand up for his opinion as long as he holds it to be true; that would entitle him to be called a ‘character’. The man who started it all, Copernicus, did not stand up for his opinion; it would be truer to say that he lay down for it inasmuch as he had it published only after his death; and yet, quite rightly, no one has ever reproached him for this. Something had been laid down to be picked up by anybody.

The man who had laid it down had gone, out of range of blame or thanks. Here was a scientific achievement which allowed simpler, shorter and more elegant calculations of celestial motions; so let humanity make use of it. Galileo’s life’s work is on the whole of the same order, and humanity used it. But unlike Copernicus who had avoided a battle, Galileo fought it and betrayed it. If Giordano Bruno, of Nola, who did not avoid the battle and had been burned twenty years earlier, had recanted, no great harm might have come of it; it
could even be argued that his martyrdom deterred scientists more than it aroused them. In Bruno’s time the battle was still a feeble one. But time did not stand still: a new class, the bourgeoisie with its new industries, had assertively entered the scene; no longer was it only scientific achievements that were at stake, but battles for their large-scale general exploitation. This exploitation had many aspects because the new class, in order to pursue its interests, had to come to power and smash the prevailing ideology that obstructed it. The church, which defended the privileges of princes and landowners as God-given and therefore natural, did not rule by means of astronomy, but it ruled within astronomy, as in everything else. And in no field could it allow its rule to be smashed. The new class, clearly, could exploit a victory in any field including that of astronomy. But once it had singled out a particular field and concentrated the battle in it, the new class became broadly vulnerable there. The maxim, ‘A chain is as strong as its weakest link,’ applies to chains that bind (such as the ideology of the church) as well as to transmission chains (such as the new class’s new ideas about property, law, science, etc.). Galileo became antisocial when he led his science into this battle and then abandoned the fight.

Teaching

Words cannot do justice to the lightness and elegance with which L. conducted the little experiment with the pieces of ice in the copper basin. A fairly long reading from books was followed by the rapid demonstration. Galileo’s relationship with his pupils is like a duel in which the fencing master uses all his feints – using them against the pupil to serve the pupil. Catching Andrea out in a hasty conclusion, Galileo crosses out his wrong entry in the record book with the same matter-of-fact patience as he displays in correcting the ice’s position in the submersion experiment.

Silence

With his pupils he uses his tricks mainly to quell their dissatisfaction with him. They are offended by his keeping silent in the European controversy about sunspots, where his views are constantly being solicited as those of the greatest authority in the field. He knows he owes his authority to the church, and hence owes the clamour for his views to his silence. His authority was given him on condition that he should not use it. L. shows how Galileo suffers by the episode of the
book on sunspots, which has been brought along and is discussed by his pupils. He pretends complete indifference, but how badly he does it! He is not allowed to leaf through the book, probably full of errors and thus twice as attractive. In little things he supports their revolt, though not himself revolting. When the lens grinder Federzoni angrily drops the scales on the floor because he cannot read Latin, Galileo himself picks them up – casually, like a man who would pick up anything that fell down.

Resumption of Research – a Sensual Pleasure

L. used the arrival of Ludovico Marsili, Virginia’s fiancé, to show his disgust at the routine nature of his work. He organised the reception of his guest in such a way that it interrupted the work and made his pupils shake their heads. On being told that the reactionary pope was on his deathbed Galileo visibly began to enjoy his wine. His bearing changed completely. Sitting at the table, his back to the audience, he experienced a rebirth; he put his hands in his pockets, placed one leg on the bench in a delicious sprawl. Then he rose slowly and walked up and down with his glass of wine. At the same time he let it be seen how his future son-in-law, the landowner and reactionary, displeased him more with every sip. His instructions to the pupils for the new experiment were so many challenges to Ludovico. With all this, L. still took care to make it plain that he was seizing the opportunity for new research not by the forelock, but just by a single little hair.

The Gest of Work

The speech about the need for caution with which Galileo resumes a scientific activity that defies all caution shows L. in a rare gest of creative, very vulnerable softness.

Even Virginia’s fainting spell on finding her fiancé gone barely interests Galileo. As the pupils hover over her, he says painfully: ‘I’ve got to know.’ And in saying it he did not seem hard.

10

Political Attitude on Dramatic Grounds

L. took the greatest interest in the tenth (carnival) scene, where the Italian people are shown relating Galileo’s revolutionary doctrine to
their own revolutionary demands. He helped sharpen it by suggesting that representatives of the guilds, wearing masks, should toss a rag doll representing a cardinal in the air. It was so important to him to demonstrate that property relationships were being threatened by the doctrine of the earth’s rotation that he declined a New York production where this scene was to be omitted.

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Decomposition

The eleventh scene is the decomposition scene. L. begins it with the same authoritative attitude as in the ninth scene. He does not permit his increasing blindness to detract one iota from his virility. (Throughout, L. strictly refused to exploit this ailment which Galileo had contracted in the pursuit of his profession, and which of course could easily have won him the sympathy of the audience. L. did not want Galileo’s surrender to be ascribable to his age or physical defects. Even in his last scene he was a man who was spiritually, not physically broken.)

The playwright would sooner have Galileo’s recantation in this scene, rather than let it take place before the Inquisition. Galileo executes it when he rejects the offer of the progressive bourgeoisie, in the person of the iron founder Vanni, to support him in his fight against the church, and insists that what he has written is an unpolitical scientific work. L. acted this rejection with the utmost abruptness and strength.

Two Versions

In the New York production L. changed his gest for the meeting with the cardinal inquisitor as he emerges from the inner chambers. In the California production he remained seated, not recognising the cardinal, while his daughter bowed. This created the impression of something ominous passing through, unrecognisable but bowing. In New York L. rose and himself acknowledged the cardinal’s bow. The playwright finds no merit in the change, since it establishes a relationship between Galileo and the cardinal inquisitor which is irrelevant, and turns Galileo’s ensuing remark, ‘His attitude was respectful, I think,’ into a statement rather than a question.

The Arrest

As soon as the chamberlain appears at the head of the stairs, Galileo hastily puts the book under his arm and runs upstairs, passing the startled chamberlain. Stopped short by the chamberlain’s words, he leafs through the book as though its quality was all that mattered. Left standing on the lower part of the staircase, he must now retrace his steps. He stumbles. Almost at the footlights – his daughter has to run to meet him – he completely pulls himself together and gives his instructions firmly and to the point. It becomes clear that he has taken certain precautions. Holding his daughter close and supporting her, he sets out to leave the hall at a rapid, energetic pace. When he reaches the wings the chamberlain calls him back. He receives the fateful decision with great composure. Acting thus, L. shows that this is neither a helpless nor an ignorant man who is being caught, but one who has made great mistakes.

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A Difficulty for the Actor: Some Effects become Apparent only when the Play is seen a Second Time

In preparing for the recantation scene L. never neglected in the preceding scenes to exhibit in all their fine shades the compliance and non-compliance in Galileo’s conduct vis-à-vis the authorities, even those instances which would only mean anything to a spectator who had already seen the entire play once. Both he and the playwright recognised that in this type of play certain details unavoidably depend on a knowledge of the whole.

The Traitor

In the book there is a stage direction for Galileo when he returns to his pupils after he recanted to the Inquisition: ‘He is changed, almost unrecognisable.’ The change in L. was not of a physical nature as the playwright had intended. There was something infantile, bed-wetting in his loose gait, his grin, indicating a self-release of the lowest order, as if restraints had been thrown off that had been very necessary.

This, like what follows, can best be seen in photographs of the California production.

Andrea Sarti is feeling sick; Galileo has asked for a glass of water for him, and now the little monk passes by him, his face averted. Galileo’s
gaze is answered by Federzoni, the artisan-scholar, and for some time the two stare at each other until the monk returns with the water. This is Galileo’s punishment: it will be the Federzonis of future centuries who will have to pay for his betrayal at the very inception of their great career.

‘
Unhappy the Land
’

The pupils have abandoned the fallen man. Sard’s last word had been: ‘Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero.’ Galileo has to think of an answer, then calls after them, too late for them to hear: ‘Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.’ L. says it soberly, as a statement by the physicist who wants to take away nature’s privilege to ordain tragedies and mankind’s need to produce heroes.

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The Goose

Galileo spends the last years of his life on an estate near Florence as a prisoner of the Inquisition. His daughter Virginia, whom he has neglected to instruct, has become a spy for the Inquisition. He dictates his
Discorsi
to her, in which he lays down his main teaching. But to conceal the fact that he is making a copy of the book he exaggerates the extent of his failing eyesight. Now he pretends not to recognise a goose which she shows him, the gift of a traveller. His wisdom has been degraded to cunning. But his zest for food is undiminished: he instructs his daughter carefully how he wants the liver prepared. His daughter conceals neither her disbelief in his inability to see nor her contempt for his gluttony. And Galileo, aware that she defends him vis-à-vis the Inquisition’s guards, sharpens the conflicts of her troubled conscience by hinting that he may be deceiving the Inquisition. Thus in the basest manner he experiments with her filial love and her devotion to the church. Nonetheless L. succeeded brilliantly in eliciting from the spectator not only a measure of contempt but also a measure of horror at degradations that debase. And for all this he had only a few sentences and pauses at his disposal.

Collaboration

Anxious to show that crime makes the criminal more criminal, L. insisted, during the adaptation of the original version, on a scene in
which Galileo collaborates with the authorities in full view of the audience. There was another reason for this: during the scene Galileo makes the most dignified use of his well-preserved intellectual powers by analysing his betrayal for the benefit of his former pupil. So he now dictates to his daughter, to whom he had for many weeks been dictating his main work, the
Discorsi
, an abject letter to the archbishop in which he advises him how the Bible may be used for the suppression of starving artisans. In this he quite frankly shows his daughter his cynicism without being entirely able to conceal the effort this ignominious exercise costs him. L. was fully aware of the recklessness with which he swam against the stream by thus throwing away his character – no audience can stand a thing like that.

The Voice of the Visitor

Virginia has laid down the manuscript of the letter to the archbishop and gone out to receive a belated visitor. Galileo hears the voice of Andrea Sarti, formerly his favourite pupil, who had broken with him after the recantation. To those readers of the play who complained that it gave no description of the spiritual agonies to which our nuclear physicists were subject by the authorities ordering the bombs, L. could show that no first-rate actor needs more than a fleeting moment to indicate such spiritual discomfort. It is of course right to compare Galileo’s submissiveness towards his authorities with that of our physicists towards rulers whom they distrust, but it would be wrong to go all the way into their stomach pains. What would be gained by that? L. was simply making this the moment to display his bad conscience, which could not have been shown later in the scene when his betrayal is analysed, without getting in his way.

The Laughter

The laughter in the picture [in the Model Book] was not suggested by the text, and it was frightening. Sarti, the former favourite pupil, calls and Virginia overhears the strained conversation. When Galileo inquires about his former collaborators, Sarti answers with utter frankness calculated to hurt his master. They get to Federzoni, a lens grinder whom Galileo had made his scientific collaborator even though he had no Latin. When Sarti reports he is back in a shop grinding lenses Galileo answers: ‘He can’t read the books’: Then L. makes him laugh. The laugh however does not contain bitterness
about a society that treats science as something secret reserved for the well-to-do, but a disgraceful mocking of Federzoni’s inadequacies together with a brazen complicity in his degradation, though this is simply (and completely) explained by his being inadequate. L. thus intended to make the fallen man a provocateur. Sarti, naturally, responds with indignation and seizes the opportunity to inflict a blow on the shameless recanter when Galileo cautiously inquires about Descartes’s further work. Sarti coldly reports that Descartes shelved his investigations into the nature of light when he heard that Galileo had recanted. And Galileo once had exclaimed that he would willingly be ‘imprisoned a thousand feet beneath the earth, if in exchange he could find out what light is’. L. inserted a long pause after this unpleasant information.