The play Life of Galileo, by the Varsity players at Cheshire Academy, was played at the Fieldhouse in the black box. It was about the life of Galileo, starting with the invention of the telescope and ending with his captivity and most likely included his death. Mr. Anderson directed the play and Galileo, the main character, was played by Charlotte Leser. The decor of the stage was kept simple so that the audience were focused on the play. The play was two hours long with a ten minutes intermission. It showed the audience that people tend to believe things that they want to believe even if they know that they are wrong. Especially this behaviour was demonstrated between the church and the sience.
The actors did a great job and you could empathize in the role of them. Also the costumes were matching with the atmosphere. Thats why you believed that the play were played hundrets of years ago. Furthermore the stress of the spoken script were really emotional and appealing. In particular the role of Galileo impressed me. Even if the role was played by a girl, the perfomence was really convincing. Also the stage crew worked fast and the different stages were build up quickly and without a big interruption, so that you could follow the play perfectly. No actor forgot his text so that you knew that they worked together well. I especially liked the plot and the idea behind the play. The play showed you that the people tend to believe things that they like or want to believe, and not always what is true or scientifically proven. This was a big fact in the play and the reason why Galileo get captured and mocked. He invented many things and established and proved many theories, for example that the earth is a round planet and not a "disk". Even if he showed the church and the people that it is true, they did not want to believe this, because it invert and changed the view of the people. The church was worried about the fact that the person start to question the whole religion and way of thinking. This would cause a big restlessness what would not be good for the government. Therefore Galileo get isolated from the civilization. Only some scientists believed him and worked with him. A good example for this was at the end of the play were a little kid insult a woman behind a window as a witch. After this a scientist lifted him up to the window and showed him that it was a normal woman. Nevertheless the little kid still wanted to believe that it was a witch because it is more fun and more exciting. This example reflected the whole discussion between the church and Galileo. He also showed them the truth about the earth, but they still did not want to believe him.
All in all the play was very entertaining and also a kind of teaching about the way how poeple think and believe. The actors did a great job with their roles and made it good to watch especially with the help of the stage crew and the technical directions. The contect of the play was exciting and convincing. All in all the Varsity Players did a great perfomence with the play Life of Galileo.
No comments:
Post a Comment