La Vie de Galilée ・ Comédie-Française

Nearly thirty years after the last production of The Life of Galileo at the Comédie-Française, Éric Ruf took up this troupe play in 2019, composing the portrait of a man constantly navigating between obscurantism and light, the embodiment of the paradoxes of the mind.

“Today, 10 January 1610, mankind writes in its diary: Galileo abolishes heaven”: accompanied by a pupil, the mathematician Galileo observes the firmament through his telescope. Ten years earlier, the philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in Rome for having maintained, on the basis of Copernicus’ studies, that we live in an infinite and centreless universe. Through observation and calculation, Galileo seeks evidence for his hypothesis of a cosmic system in which the Earth is “an ordinary celestial body, one of thousands”. From Padua to Venice, the mathematician undermines certainties by confronting the power of a Church that wishes to hold onto its absolute power over the “crystal spheres” in which Ptolemy had contained the world up to that point. Galileo’s discoveries about astronomy and physics fascinate the people but the scientist recants under the threat of torture.
In this play, which has been described as prophetic, the complexity of Galileo’s character stands out, as noted by Antoine Vitez: “I need neither to save him nor not to save him, I only need to show him.” Éric Ruf follows Vitez by focusing on what the play has to say about the fundamental necessity of doubt: eschewing didacticism or simplification but embracing knowledge, credulity, faith, ethics and science, the play is above all the portrait of a “great man” who is as brilliant as he is ordinarily human. A portrait that the director entrusts to Hervé Pierre – his Peer Gynt of 2012 –bowing out in this role, from the troupe he was part of for fifteen years.

Premiere 7 June 2019 Salle Richelieu

Creative team

Staging and scenography: Éric Ruf
Translation: Éloi Recoing
Costumes: Christian Lacroix
Light: Bertrand Couderc
Original music: Vincent Leterme
Sound: Colombine Jacquemont
Choreographic work: Glysleïn Lefever
Artistic collaboration: Léonidas Strapatsakis
Assistant director: Alison Hornus
Assistant scenography: Julie Camus
Costume assistant: Jean Philippe Pons
Light Assistantship: Lila Meynard

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