ABSTRACT
The Life of Galileo becomes, not just the story of an individual, but an emblem of an individual domain which participates in local social domains, which participate, in their turn, in a Christian domain, which participates, in its turn, in a national domain, which participates in a human domain, which participates in a planetary domain, which participates in a galactic domain, and so on. Two scenes are often omitted when the Life of Galileo is performed. The one dramatizes the reaction of the working people of Italy to Galileo's innovative ideas; the other portrays Andrea, Galileo's pupil, smuggling Galileo's most recent book, the Discorsi, across the Italian border. Life of Galileo seeks to establish links that run from the creativity of the individual to the continuity of the cosmos. The more extreme forms of well-made plays, naturalistic plays and expressionist plays found such inclusiveness impossible to sustain.
