TESS Of The D’Urbervilles will be Tess at the double in Ockham’s Razor’s circus adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Victorian novel, on tour at York Theatre Royal from May 8 to 11.
Circus performer Lila Naruse will play Memory Tess in tandem with actress Hanora Kamen as Narrator Tess in Alex Harvey and Charlotte Mooney’s bold fusion of original text and the physical language of circus that enables the duo to tell the Wessex story of power, loss and endurance through a feminist lens.
The directors say: “Tess Of The D’Urbervilles has been adapted before for TV and film but it always struck us that the poetry of the book, the radical nature of it, and the strength and heroism of Tess was often lost in translation.
“Over time we became increasingly convinced that circus, and all the physicality of it, would be the perfect medium for capturing all the many elements of the novel. One of the surprises in the creation of Tess is how much joy and humour there is to find in the novel and the staging. There is a seam of joy in there which is captured by the play and collaboration of the ensemble.”
Commissioned by The Lowry, Salford and London International Mime Festival, circus theatre specialists Ockham’s Razor bring a cast of five women and two men to their first production based on a novel, presenting a script that uses Hardy’s own words with advice from novelist and screenwriter Anne Marie Casey, who has adapted Little Women and Wuthering Heights previously for the stage.
Strength and circus language evoke the physical labour of the novel as the cast members wield wooden planks and shift walls, ropes and swathes of linen to make sets that they balance on, climb, carry and construct.
Weaving together Hardy’s poetic language, acrobatics, aerial skills, dance, physical theatre, Tina Bicât’s evocative set and costume design, Daniel Denton’s projection design and Nathan Johnston’s choreography, Harvey and Mooney’s philosophical production explores questions of privilege, class, consent, agency, female desire and sisterhood.
At the heart are Memory Tess and Narrator Tess. “Memory Tess mostly re-lives the storytelling of Narrator Tess in a physical role with no verbal communication,” says Lila. “Through circus, dance, movement or physical theatre, she helps to create storytelling images very physically.”
Alongside her, Hanora is stepping into the role of Narrator Tess for the York run. “It involves lots of language, loads of Hardy’s beautiful language,” she says. “It runs to 28 pages, which makes it sparser than other narrators’ roles than can feel dense.
“My role is to guide the audience, when a voice is needed, or to make a link between Memory Tess and Narrator Tess, and to take the audience on two journeys but on one route, starting at different points in Tess’s life.
“Narrator Tess starts from the end of Tess’s life, as if you’re looking through old photos, with Memory Tess experiencing those memories, passing by the Narrator, and making the audience think, ‘what if something else could have happened?’.”
Both Lila and Hanora are working with Ockham’s Razor for the first time. “I did the R&D [research and development] for this show in November 2022,“ says Lila. “I come from a dance background, and they’ve brought together people from different disciplines, who’ve trained in circus or dance, so there’s a lot of crossover of disciplines to help each other with the things we haven’t trained in.”
Hanora reveals: “I’ve been trying to make contact with the company for what feels like the longest time, since the Edinburgh Fringe in 2016. It’s funny, you do that a lot as an actor. In this case, the chance has come now with an actor moving on to other things.
“Like Lila, I come from a devising background, but when you have a short lead-in time, you watch videos though you don’t want to feel your performance doesn’t come from within you, so I learnt the lines first.
“For me, this is a new show, and there’s a freshness for everyone. It’s a very exciting opportunity.”
Only One Question for….Ockham’s Razor artistic directors Charlotte Mooney and Alex Harvey
Why Tess?
SINCE Ockham’s Razor announced their ground-breaking circus adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, artistic directors Charlotte Mooney and Alex Harvey have faced one question more than any other: “Why Tess?”.
“The answer starts with the fact that we both love the novel – in fact at times have felt a bit haunted by it,” they say, ahead of next week’s visit to York Theatre Royal.
“Despite being written in 1891, it still seems to speak to this moment in time as it explores questions of privilege, class, poverty, agency, the need for non-industrialised agriculture, female desire and solidarity.
“It also pulses with such a deep vein of beautiful pain around love and loss, heartbreak and yearning like no other novel.”
Tess has always struck them as a very physical and visual book. “Hardy paints this story with images alongside the deep poetry of the language, and at the centre of it is Tess, a character who experiences the world physically in all her journeying, labouring, desiring and battling against the fate dealt out to her,” they say.
“It is incredibly nuanced in its evocation of female relationships, sexual violence and female desire.
“We have long experience of working with reframing the female body with circus looking at strength, capability and agency and know there’s a radical staging of this that is possible and also one where the subtlety, nuance and poetry of the novel could be captured by movement.”
Mooney and Harvey note that although Tess has been adapted for film and television previously, the book’s poetry, its radical nature and Tess’s strength and heroism were often lost in translation, instead presenting her as an oddly passive and bloodless character.
“Over time we became increasingly convinced that circus and all the physicality of it would be the perfect medium for capturing all the many elements of the novel,” they say. “So we sat in our kitchen and over three weeks read the novel to each other and sketched out chapter by chapter, phase by phase, how we would imagine this painted on the stage. Weaving together Hardy’s words with our physical storytelling.”
They duly wrote an adaptation where the story is told by an actor playing Tess [Hanora Kamen’s Narrator Tess]. “She speaks to us just before her execution, looking back at the events that have led to that moment,” they say. “She tells her story using Hardy’s words while an ensemble re-creates her memories onstage: the extreme physicality of the movement evoking the depth of emotion.
“Sometimes our actor becomes swept up by the ensemble and drawn into the action, so that it is also an adaption which deals with the act of telling, of memory, of control and of fate.”
Alongside Hanora, six circus performers use their strength and circus language to evoke the emotion and the physical labour of the novel. “They create Hardy’s Wessex on stage, wielding a series of wooden planks, shifting walls, ropes and swathes of linen to make sets that can unfold and which they balance upon, climb, carry and construct to become the vast landscapes and interior worlds. Both a literal landscape and a depiction of Tess’s inner world,” say the directors.
One surprise to Mooney and Harvey is how much joy and humour is to be found in the novel and their staging. “Most people, when they think of Tess, remember how bleak and heartbreaking it is. It is a tragedy but also there is a seam of joy in there which is captured by the play and collaboration of the ensemble and there is a reading where Tess moves towards annihilation but also action.”
The question of ‘Why Tess?’ has a practical answer too? “This book is part of the A-level syllabus and so is also an opportunity for us to reach new young audiences and introduce them to our art form and how it is perfectly placed to adapt this book about fate, class, struggle, heartbreak, yearning and redemption,” say Mooney and Harvey.
“Finally, we’ve been creating shows for 18 years, with each creation learning how to evoke worlds, relationships and meaning in circus. We feel that we’ve been working towards the making of this show for many years and now is the time to make it.”
Ockham’s Razor in Tess, York Theatre Royal, May 8 to 11, 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
