Tess of the d'Urbervilles

"There was the record of a pulsing life which had learnt too well, for its years, of the dust and ashes of things, of the cruelty of lust and the fragility of love." TH

A moving new adaptation of Hardy’s renowned tale of Tess Durbeyfield. Subtitled “A Pure Woman” by Hardy who loathed the sexual hypocrisy of the time, Tess is a cry of outrage at God’s indifference and humanity’s devastating need to crush what is beautiful or unusual, to destroy what they do not understand. Countless essay questions have been set as to who is the most to blame for the tragedy that is Tess – Alec D’Urberville who seduces her without consent, Angel Clare who wins her love and trust only to betray and reject her or her parents who naively call upon her to sacrifice herself for them thinking it will be without consequence for their child. Not for the faint hearted, but immensely stimulating high drama nevertheless.

Barons Court Theatre, Ingatestone Hall and Letchworth Arts Centre - May 2009

Directed by James Baker ... ... ... ... Produced by Connie Stephens ... ... ... ... Stage Managers (London) - Mark Magill, (Tour) - Bill Baker

The Cast

Tess Durbeyfield - Joanna O'Connor ... Angel Clare - Ediz Fehmi ... Alec d'Urberville/John Durbeyfield/Dairyman Crick/Mr Clare - James Kingdon ... Izz Huet/Joan Durbeyfield/Car Darch - Emma Kedge ... Retty Priddle/Liza-Lu Durbeyfield/Nancy Darch/Mrs Clare/Mrs Stoke-d'Urberville - Amelia Clay

Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928)

Thomas Hardy was born on 2nd June 1840 in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset and was an author of the naturalist movement. The son of a country stonemason, Hardy derived a love of music from his father and a devotion to literature from his mother. After initially training as an architect Hardy began to write poetry, then prose.In 1867 he wrote his first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, but was advised not to publish on the grounds of it being too satirical for Victorian tastes. His next Desperate Remedies (1871) was sadly unsuccessful but was followed by Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) for which he earned £30. Far from the Madding Crowd, serialized in 1874, was his first financial and critical success and was succeeded by The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895).

The continuing popularity of Hardy’s novels owes much to their rich variety and his genius in depicting human nature at its very best and worst. Whilst often accused of being a pessimist, Hardy preferred to call himself a "meliorist" - one who believed that man can live with some happiness if he understands his place in the universe and accepts it.

Hardy's later works were increasingly at odds with Victorian morality, and the public outcry at Jude so appalled him that he wrote no more novels. He returned to poetry with Wessex Poems (1898), Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), and The Dynasts (1910), a vast poetic drama on the Napoleonic Wars. Hardy died on 11th January 1928. His ashes are interred in Westminster Abbey, but his heart is buried separately, in his beloved Dorset, near the Egdon Heath made famous by his novels.