Ockham's Razor: Taking Tess on tour

Circus is traditionally perceived as a combination of acts coming together to create a full performance. But in this case, there is only one woman running the show: Tess. Ockham's Razor's re-telling delves into how this character should have been free to lead if fate and societal constraints hadn't intervened. Tess possesses a sinewy resilience that is often not portrayed in adaptations of Hardy's novel; the circus elements in this touring production, however, allows for her experiences to be physicalised in a way does justice to her strong character.

‘We have long experience of working with reframing the female body with circus looking at strength, capability and agency and also at danger, fear, risk and vulnerability,’ says artistic director, Charlotte Mooney, ‘it is through the physical that we are wrestling with the feminist themes inherent in the novel. Tess of the D'Urbervilles has always struck us as such 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.’