Reviewing the work of the Berlin Ensemble, Harold Clurman has written: "The play which most strongly stamped on my mind a sense of Brecht's great stature as an artist of the theatre was Galileo." And again: "Galileo is entirely contemporary in view of the events of our atomic age and in relation to certain problems of conscience."
The adaptation is the famous one which was brought to completion by Brecht himself, working with Charles Laughton, who played Galileo in the first two American productions of the play (Hollywood and New York, 1947). Since then the play has become a classic of the world repertoire.