Chiké Johnson and Emily Bosco in Remy Bumppo’s production of “Galileo’s Daughter”/Photo: Jose Uribe / Nomee Photography
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The title character of Jessica Dickey’s “Galileo’s Daughter,” having its world premiere at Remy Bumppo, is also the subject of Dava Sobel’s bestselling book of the same name. Sobel’s 2000 book about the great scientist’s brilliant, illegitimate cloistered daughter, Maria Celeste, seems to have inspired the play. That is, if the second main character in the stage work, a contemporary New York woman playwright, identified only as “Writer,” is, at least in part, a stand-in for Dickey. Addressing the audience directly, Writer tells us that Sobel’s work launched the quest that took her to Florence, Italy to review the two decades of letters Marie Celeste wrote her father beginning when Galileo first delivered her to a convent in order to safeguard her as he faced persecution by the Catholic Inquisition. Sobel translated all of the letters for her book, but the originals still have pull for Writer, even though she cannot speak or read Italian. Writer is working through the aftermath of her divorce back home and has a grant to conduct the research in Italy. Armed with the secondhand knowledge of her subject—gleaned largely from Sobel?—and unsure knowledge of herself, Writer briefly encounters a parade of Italians who understand better than she does that she is running away, or perhaps working out her personal issues by coming to Italy. But she has the grant and is thrust into the lives of Galileo and his daughter and through her quest finds a measure of peace.
Along the way, Writer recounts the life of Marie Celeste, chronicling her emotionally close and intellectually rigorous relationship with her father. Revealed, too, are Marie Celeste’s struggles with, and ultimate acclimation to, life in the austere convent where impoverishment of all comforts, including bedding, is one of its institutional virtues. Dickey’s three-person play follows the contours of Sobel’s book, but it also lives in the shadow of Bertolt Brecht’s magisterial, canonical drama, “Life of Galileo,” which was a Marxist-tinged bombshell when first produced in Europe in the 1940s. And again, when rewritten and produced in the United States just as the Red Scare was shaping up after WWII. The history lesson and moral terrain in Dickey’s “Galileo’s Daughter” are extremely lean compared to Brecht’s “Galileo,” but Dickey does a better job with the facts of Marie Celeste’s life, some of which Brecht had concocted for his dramatic and polemical purposes.
Linda Gillum and Emily Bosco in “Galileo’s Daughter”/Photo: Jose Uribe / Nomee Photography
The action divides in two as it alternates between the seventeenth century of the daughter and the twenty-first century of Writer. Emily Bosco gives a moving portrayal of Marie Celeste, capturing both her mental strength and firm-while-giving heart. Bosco also ably doubles as a few minor characters. The magnetic Chiké Johnson plays Galileo, sensitively balancing the great man’s fierce devotion to his heretical science and his longing to stay connected to his exceptional daughter. Johnson also assumes the roles of a long roster of men in both centuries. The many other characters are remarkably distinct and expertly drawn; his quick changes are a magic act.
As Writer, Linda Gillum conveys the tentative footing of her character, who barrels on in her quest despite being painfully unready for it logistically or intellectually. The character speaks no Italian—let alone that of Renaissance Florence—and is clueless as to where to find the archived letters.
And, in one of the script’s few failings, when Writer speaks to the audience, she perpetuates some of the errors in Galileo’s science as if they were fact. This may be inadvertent, because the script leaves unclear whether Writer is summarizing Galileo’s own, still incomplete understanding of the solar system’s place in the universe. Or is Writer incorrectly citing Galileo’s view as the truth we now all accept. Of course, our sun is only the center of our solar system, not the universe. (Astoundingly, this error also appears on otherwise respectable educational materials–including from NASA–on the web.) The great astronomer may or may not have thought that the sun was the center of the universe. It’s a grating fault in the script. Especially so since one assumes the actual playwright, Dickey, whose other work often builds on meticulous research, including on scientific subjects, knows what’s up. And what’s all around. Communicating the science correctly is important, since our acceptance of the rest of the history in the play rests on our trusting the playwright. A simple fix to the script would mend the misunderstanding.
The play does give a good account of Galileo’s timeline of discovery, made all the more interesting because it unfolds in the context of what was perhaps his most important human relationship. It may also give us too complete an account of the inner life of Writer—and this should shock no one—who is of nearly infinitesimal interest when coupled with the cosmically fascinating Galileo and daughter. As Writer, actor Gillum is as likable and nuanced as the role allows, but the play has other suns to revolve around.
“Galileo’s Daughter” is also the directorial debut of Marti Lyons in her new role as Remy Bumppo’s artistic director. She has a strong cast which makes the most of the largely spare stage that is augmented with evocative video of old Florence. Lyons skillfully squeezes her small cast into its many characters and gives a premiere to an intriguing play that may still face revisions, but is very much worth seeing today.
“Galileo’s Daughter,” through May 14, Remy Bumppo Theatre Company at Theater Wit, 1229 West Belmont, RemyBumppo.org.
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