A Life of Galileo - Blog - Hannah Breedon

I was over the moon to be invited to Lazarus Theatre Company’s rehearsed reading of

Bertolt Brecht’s “A Life of Galileo”. After too many delays (thank you TfL), I finally arrived at

the beautiful Admiral Rooms at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. What a treat to

be working in such a beautiful space. And an even better treat? Working with such a

talented group of actors and creatives.

I have never attended a play read quite like this one! After warming up and introducing ourselves, we used an exercise called “French Exiting” in which we recorded each new scene starting when someone entered or exited the space.

Pieces of paper with key themes were dotted around the room too, for actors to

write quotes relating to these themes when not in the playing space. And as the music

played each time someone entered or exited, we danced to a new theme. It was absolute

chaos (in the best possible way!). We continued with a slightly cooled down version of this

until the play was finished. Possibly my favourite part of the day was the post play

discussion. Listening to so many different perspectives and opinions on the piece was eye

opening. As a new creative, listening to those with experience and knowledge (particularly

on Brecht’s works) was invaluable to me. Seeing how many parallels a play written in 1938

had with our lives and the world around us today was astounding. It is proof that theatre

really is timeless!