Galileo’s Daughter, a world premiere being presented by Remy Bumppo Theatre, is more a meditation on family and science than a play in a strictly theatrical sense. The story is woven from contemporary scenes, when an American playwright goes to Florence to research the life of Galileo’s daughter, and the 17th century family scenes between the mathematician/astronomer and his daughter. You could eliminate the contemporary scenes and the story would still enthrall us with the beauty of two minds and their love for each other. (Actually, if you did that, you’d have something like a play adapted from Dava Sobel’s estimable 1999 history, Galileo’s Daughter—which gets a H/T in the script.)
Marti Lyons directs Jessica Dickey’s play, which begins with the playwright arriving in Florence. The unnamed Writer (Linda Gillum) is there to do research for a play on Galileo’s daughter based on her letters to her father. (The Writer doesn’t seem very well prepared to do research in a foreign country, however. Most scholars in that situation would have paved the way for their work with letters and requests for admission to the important libraries, museums and archives, rather than having to beg for entrance from a series of uninterested minor functionaries. The beauty of her visits to the minor functionaries, however, is that they are all played by actor Chiké Johnson, a man with a warm and melodious voice, who also plays Galileo himself. (Johnson’s voice makes you want to say you could listen to him read the phone book, if there was such a thing any more.)
When the Writer arrives in Florence, she goes for a run to get acquainted with her new environs. Exquisite projections line her route on the simply designed set (scenic design by Yeaji Kim and projections by John Boesche) and show us images of Florence in Galileo’s era. She gets to work and visits the Museo Galileo, where his two remaining handmade telescopes are displayed, the National Library, and an archive where the Writer finally finds the cache of Daughter's remaining letters to her father.
Daughter (Emily Bosco) is named Virginia after her aunt, Galileo’s sister. Her mother was Marina Gamba, Galileo’s longtime illicit lover but never wife. Thus the daughter was considered unmarriageable. In that era, a woman in such a situation often ended up in a convent—and that is Daughter’s fate. Her father sends her to live with the nuns, even though she pleads that she wants to stay and assist him in his work studying the sky through his handmade telescopes.
He argues against her remaining with him; he knows he is in danger because of his radical views on the universe; his observations provide evidence for the first time for the Copernican view that the earth rotates daily and revolves around the sun, the center of the universe. Church doctrine is the Aristotelian and Biblical belief (in the Psalms and the book of Joshua) that the earth is the center of the universe and the sun, moon and stars revolve around it. But Galileo’s powerful telescope shows him the opposite: the earth is in motion, he observes. He also discovers Jupiter’s moons, formerly thought to be stars. He is adamant about the risk and his daughter finally goes to the convent, where she feels she can still help him. She does, and writes him hundreds of letters. She takes the name Maria Celeste (honoring her father’s study of the heavens).
Maria Celeste’s relationship with her loving father is the highlight of the play, dramatized in their correspondence and their scenes together. In the final scenes, Galileo lives in a small house in Florence after being found guilty of heresy and sentenced to house arrest.
Lyons’ direction of the many short scenes that make up the play is smooth and well-paced. Bosco gives a sensitive performance as Daughter and Johnson provides what is sure to be a Jeff-nominated performance as Galileo, a cleric or two—and all those minor functionaries. This is not Remy Bumppo's first brush with the life of Galileo. In 2016, they staged an excellent production of Bertolt Brecht's The Life of Galileo, directed by Nick Sandys.
The set design and projections are enhanced by lighting by Becca Jeffords; sound design and original music are by Christopher Kriz. Costumes are by Finnegan Chu. Jean E. Compton is stage manager.
Galileo’s Daughter by Remy Bumppo Theatre continues at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, through May 14. Running time is 80 minutes with no intermission. Tickets are $10-$45 for performances Thursday-Sunday.