From October 17-21, there was a live reading of Bertolt Brecht’s Life of Galileo starring Stacey Keach as the Italian scientist, performed before a live audience at the Skirball Cultural Center where it was taped for broadcast on NPR and satellite radio and will air on KPCC Dec. 1. The performance dates almost precisely coincided with the 60^th anniversary of Brecht’s October 30, 1947 appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Star gazer Galileo Galilei turned the 16^th century world upside down when he challenged Holy sMother Church by contending that the Earth revolved around the sun, instead of visa versa, as the church claimed. Galileo’s heliocentric theories led to confrontation with the hellish Inquisition, which forced Galileo to recant upon pain of torture and death. So much for free inquiry and the scientific method.

Brecht is my favorite 20^th century playwright, and the left-wing German’s drama about the Tuscan astronomer who runs afoul of the not-so-Holy Inquisition has different specific meanings, depending on the times it is produced in. Brecht -- who was part-Jewish, all-progressive and a refugee from der Fatherland who landed in Santa Monica -- originally wrote his play in the late 1930s. Perhaps Brecht meant his tale of the man of reason versus the Grand Inquisitors to symbolize Nazi efforts at thought control? Or maybe he had Stalin’s Moscow show trials in mind?

When Galileo premiered July 30, 1947 at the Coronet Theatre on La Cienega, starring Charles Laughton and co-directed by Brecht and Joseph Losey, the play had taken on a whole new meaning. For the star-studded audience – including Charlie Chaplin, Gene Kelly, Ingrid Bergman, John Garfield, Anthony Quinn, Kurt Weill, etc. – “the parallel between HUAC’s activities in Washington, D.C., and the Inquisition… escaped no one,” as Norma Barzman (who was there) wrote in The Red and the Blacklist.

The new version of Galileo by British dramatist David Hare (screenwriter of 2002’s Virginia Woolf-inspired The Hours) will have new meanings for 21^st century audiences. Of course, some may think of the Dixie Chicks and other star-crossed talents who, like the Hollywood Ten, were persecuted for expressing “Un-American” viewpoints. Others may see parallels with the GOP’s jihad against science and the Bush and religious right’s denial of global warming, evolution, unfettered stem cell research, sex education/birth control, etc.

In any case, attending the premiere performance of Galileo at the Skirball was a unique experience. Once upon a time, radio was to home audiences what broadcast and cable TV, DVDs, CD players, stereos, iPods and the Internet combined are to today’s generation. Shows like The Shadow and The Jack Benny Program thrilled and cheered millions of Americans right in their very own living rooms. Woody Allen’s nostalgic 1987 Radio Days drolly captured the magic of the airwaves, that involved listeners’ imaginations as they pictured Fibber McGee’s closet or Benny’s chauffeur Rochester in their minds’ eyes.

Radio as a dominant dramatic/comedic home entertainment art form was before this lad’s time, and being an “ear”-witness to a taping of Galileo was a first for me. A special treat was watching Foley artist Tony Palermo work his magic, creating a universe of sound effects, from clip-clopping horses to flowing water. Although the cast was not clad in period costumes and the Skirball stage was unadorned by Renaissance décor, the performers – ably assisted by aural alchemist Palermo -- managed to cast a spell and transport the audience back to 16^th century Florence and Venice. Despite being garbed in modern dress and holding scripts, the thespians in the large cast nevertheless fully inhabited their roles, just like any other actor treading the boards. Stacey Keach, a veteran actor of stage and big and little screens, became the Italian astronomer every bit as much as he had been, say, Mike Hammer, the Mickey Spillane private eye he’d played on TV in the 1980s and 1990s. Keach, like the rest of this ensemble, is quite excellent in conveying the times and principles Brecht espoused in his defense of the rational mind in its struggle with medievalism.

Galileo’s director Martin Jarvis may have been aware of the 60^th anniversary of Brecht’s HUAC testimony because on opening night Jarvis referenced the Hollywood Ten and called Galileo “the Venetian One.” Brecht’s own experience with and actions vis-à-vis HUAC’s witch-hunters mirrored Galileo’s harrowing interactions with the Grand Inquisitors. As Brecht’s drama shows, Galileo recanted, purging himself of his “wild-eyed” theory that the Earth actually went around the sun. In doing so, Galileo, who loved life, was not only spared the torments of the Auto-de-fe and an untimely death, but enabled him to continue to secretly work on his scientific theories, clandestinely writing his Dialogues and discourses for a more enlightened future public.

L.A. Theatre Works' The Play's the Thing continues its Relativity science series by presenting Bertolt Brecht's The Life of Galileo on KPCC, 89.3 FM. Dec 1 from 10:00 p.m