Review: ‘Galileo’s Daughter’ by Remy Bumppo tells the story of a daughter with a remarkable mind
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Galileo Galilei, the 16th century Italian astronomer, philosopher and mathematician who did much to advance the scientific method, had a loyal daughter who showed similar intellectual talent and yet got packed off to a convent. The playwright Jessica Dickey received a grant to write a play about her.
You might not have known that before attending the world premiere of “Galileo’s Daughter” by Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, but you’ll surely know afterward since that bit of information is repeated many times in an 80-minute work that’s as much about Dickey’s quest to write a play about Maria Celeste Galilei as about the Italian nun herself.
The writer-seeks-subject genre is, of course, a legitimate and popular approach to historical drama, especially in these halcyon days for first-person work. And it functions just fine for much of this interesting evening of theater. But in the end, and especially at the end, the desire of the playwright to get past librarians and other gatekeepers to Sister Maria’s letters to her father ends up overwhelming a very interesting subject for a play.
It’s ironic, in that the play also is about how the daughter’s own intellectual and emotional life was upended, and ultimately destroyed by the fame and notoriety of a father who loved her, but whose ideas of protectiveness were patriarchal at best. Given the evidence presented here, you really start to feel that Maria Celeste deserved all the focus anyone could give her. Especially as inhabited by the excellent performer Emily Bosco, who plays this compelling character with a veracity and intellectual curiosity that anchors this new play as well as could be imagined.
The three-character show, which also features Linda Gillum playing the authorial alter ego, and the enigmatic Chiké Johnson, who plays Galileo with a good deal of energy and heart, is very well staged by artistic director Marti Lyons. The powers structure here is nuanced in that you see the Catch-22 faced by Galileo, fearful of the religious authorities who might come after the daughter as a way to get to the father. But you also see that even a great rationalist and scientific mind was subject to the sexist prejudices of his day. As with other stirring historical dramas about those who lived in proximity to great geniuses, you leave with the sense that Maria Celeste was born before her time.
I hope Dickey keeps working on the play, especially the later stages. If she gets the process of writing out of the way and lets the character who so fascinated her take center stage, she’ll have something truly of note.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Review: “Galileo’s Daughter” (2.5 stars)
When: Through May 14
Where: Remy Bumppo at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave.
Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes
Tickets: $10-$40 at www.remybumppo.org
