A telling of one of Hardy's Wessex novels through circus, two things that on the surface don't seem to go together, was intriguing enough to make me want to see how—and whether—they could pull it off. But they do.
While it may not have the finer nuances of the novel, all the important story beats are there and told well, even though there is no dialogue between the characters. Context is provided by, at the current performances, Hanora Kamen narrating as the Tess Durbeyfield of the title, while Lila Naruse plays the same character in the scenes. While narration is often overdone or feels like a cop-out for novel adaptations, here it is just enough to make sense of the elegant physical storytelling.
The story is, like the book, divided into titled 'phases', which are projected as each begins onto the backdrop, although a combination of an ornamental handwriting-style typeface and obstructive scenery in some scenes can make them difficult to read. Tess begins with her poor family when her father is told they are related to the rich d’Urbervilles, and he gets drunk to celebrate. Tess takes the cart to market in his place, but crashes and their only horse is killed, so she goes to the d'Urberville house to ask for work, where she meets arrogant young Alec d'Urberville.
Joshua Frazer enters as Alec on a Cyr wheel, teasing Tess with the danger of it then finally trapping her inside it. He finds her a job, but she continually rejects his advances, until he takes her into the woods and rapes her. The result of that is a child who doesn't survive for long.
Tess moves forty miles away to where no one knows of her past and gets work in a dairy—the cows represented brilliantly and amusingly by giant inflatable bags. Handsome Angel Clare (Nat Whittingham) is mooned over by the girls who work there (mischievously performed by ensemble members Lauren Jamieson, Victoria Skillen and Leah Wallings, who all play many different characters), resulting in some very amusing scenes of them climbing up and down the wall to watch him reading and then hurling themselves at him for him to carry them across water. But he has eyes for Tess, and though she rejects him a number of times, eventually she gives in.
When Angel admits to a past affair with an older woman, Tess thinks it is safe to tell him what happened to her, because it's the same, and wasn't her fault—isn't it?. But things don't go quite that smoothly.
Tina Bicât's design, in a limited palette of browns and blues enhanced by Aideen Malone's lighting and Daniel Denton's video backdrops, provides a playground of wooden planks of various sizes that are either hand-supported for the performers to walk along or perform various acrobatic feats or slot together to create both small items of set and impressively large structures before our eyes. The programme credits Alex Harvey and Charlotte Mooney as co-directors and Nathan Johnston as choreographer, but it's hard to see who is responsible for what in a production told almost entirely through movement.
And that movement is mesmerising throughout. Although the story unfolds at an unhurried pace and the construction of objects can sometimes take a while, it is all fascinating to watch, and so it holds the attention. The acrobatics are impressive, but they are there to tell story, or to communicate mood or character, never simply to be admired in themselves.
The final moments of Tess the character and Tess the play (spoiler alert I guess) are performed slowly and delicately as an aerial silks routine but with a hangman's rope, but rather than a horrific end, it looks like a beautiful release.
The purpose of traditional circus is to impress with the skill and the danger of the feats performed, but, while this production does this, the predominant impression it leaves you with is of a moving story well-told through unconventional means.