Two Men of Florence at Huntington Theatre Co.

Richard Goodwin has taken the main characters and added several others to dramatize this philosophical wrestling match. It is a smackdown with no real winner. Furthermore, the match seems to get lost in the heavy and steady barrage of unending verbiage. 

Goodwin is known as a prominent wordsmith.  He served with distinction under President John F. Kennedy, for President Lyndon B. Johnson, and for Senator Robert Kennedy as a speechwriter, diplomat, and governmental administrator. He was an Assistant Undersecretary of State, Administrator of the Peace Corps and named LBJ's Great Society. After leaving governmental service, he wrote for Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and published a number of books. He is married to the prominent historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.

It is clear that Goodwin was passionate in his quest to create a play about the challenging fight between scripture and science, the secular and the religious, as personified by this notable historic confrontation. Here there was a heroic fight between the most prominent scientific mind of his day and the most powerful religious leader in the world. But sometimes, a playwright's zealousness is just not enough. The audience should be made to care about a play's characters.

This was a fight about modernism. It was a conflict about control. The Roman Inquisition made a statement. Yet, somehow,  the playwright  left out the souls of the participants. The words may be beautiful, but the individuals speaking them are not fully formed. There is little passion in the production. Like many too serious religious ceremonies, there is ritual here without very much fervor. It is hard to feel spiritually transformed or even inspired by this play.

The relationship of Galileo to his nun daughter Maria Celeste (Molly Schreiber) seemed very mannered, almost purposely obscure. Surely, the nun at Galileo's home/laboratory heavy handedly suggested the total integration of Roman Catholic religion fully into his life with its scientific study and experimentation. However, unless Galileo spoke words of affection to Maria, and she to him, there is no clear familial relationship. There was other confusion as well. The various priests, monks and many red gowned, bearded cardinals did not add clarity or individual identity. Who were they? It was hard to recognize who was who. Perhaps, with some strong editing, fewer actors and less roles, the play would be stronger, clearer, and more meaningfully engaging.

Two Men of Florence has high production values. The costumes and the set were beautiful. The lighting was elegantly evocative and narratively illuminating. The Huntington Theatre is always very professional in these categories. But, and a big but, the individual characterizations were not absorbing. It is difficult to feel empathy for any of them. The main roles casting was a bit suspect as well. Edward Hermann seemed like a rather too Waspish Italian Cardinal Barberini and later Pope Urban VIII, while Jay O. Sanders seemed too robustly athletic for a bookish, scholarly genius scientist. Though in each case, the performance was strong if not visually and, at times, audibly discordant.

All of the actors were good. The set was good. The script just did not do them justice. Though Goodwin is certainly on to something universal--the conflict between science and religion, scriptural fundamentalism and progressive thought, Two Men of Florence in its current form is a disappointment. There is an important message here though. It is hoped that it can be refined one day to give this powerful idea for a play a soul.