Ockham’s Razor have announced the West End run of their bold new vision of Hardy’s classic novel, Tess of the D’Urbervilles. From Wednesday 31st January to Saturday 3rd February 2024, Tess will be performed at Sadler’s Wells’ Peacock Theatre.
Hardy’s classic novel still has extraordinary relevance for contemporary audiences as it explores questions of privilege, class, consent, agency, female desire and sisterhood.
Tess uses the original text combined with the physical language of circus, allowing the performers to retell the well-known story of power, loss and endurance through a feminist lens. Tess is Ockham’s Razor’s first production based on a novel, capturing the poetry of Hardy and the philosophical depth of the novel, interweaving Ockham’s Razor’s signature physical storytelling to tell this gut-wrenching story about the strength to endure.
Tess features an ensemble of circus performers, five women and two men, from diverse backgrounds who will weave together acrobatics, aerial, dance and physical theatre. The distinctive simple, evocative design of Ockham’s Razor will evoke the physical labour of the novel and create Hardy’s Wessex onstage, wielding wooden planks, shifting walls, ropes and swathes of linen to make sets that unfold and which the cast balance upon, climb, carry and construct. The company has a long experience of working with reframing the female body with circus, looking at strength, capability and agency.
