Ockham's Razor, Tess Review ★★★★★

Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles may be set in Victorian England, but it has lost none of its power. The story of an innocent young woman forced into service by poverty and then violated by a rich, dissolute man, who continues to suffer the social stigma of her fall, still speaks volumes about the misuse of power, moral hypocrisy, and the treatment of women.

In the hands of Ockham’s Razor, the contemporary circus/physical theatre company, Hardy’s tale, now entitled simply Tess, acquires new urgency and relevance. Adapted and directed by Alex Harvey and Charlotte Mooney, Tess blends dance, basic circus skills – balances, cartwheels, human towers – and text to build an intense, fast-moving narrative that transports its audience to Hardy’s Wessex, with its physical and social contrasts, aided by Daniel Denton’s atmospheric video projections.

The seven performers - five women and two men - build the story’s different settings with simple materials, such as inflatable bags that somehow become dairy cows, lengths of cloth and wooden planks, with which the cast incessantly interact.

Ockham's Razor, Tess. Photo: Kie Cummings
Tess is played by two performers: actor Macadie Amoroso, who provides the oral first person narrative, and Lila Naruse who physically enacts it.

As physical performers, all seven embody their characters with profound expressiveness, whether in busy ensembles or as specific characters. Joshua Frazer is excellent as the arrogant, entitled seducer Alec D'Urberville. As he dazzles Tess by spinning around the stage in a cyr wheel, which he then uses to entrap her, the symbolism is all too evident.

Ockham's Razor, Tess, Photo: Kie Cummings
Nat Whittingham is all too plausible as the studious Angel Clare, coveted by every girl in the village – at one point four girls jump on him under pretext of crossing a stream – who marries Tess but can’t handle the revelation of her past, even though he himself has a past of his own.

The story is told in seven chapters, thorough an extended Part One, which does contain its fair share of longueurs, and a shorter, tighter Part Two, where Tess’s death by hanging and subsequent redemption pack a tremendous emotional punch.

It was unfortunate that the Peacock’s poor acoustics combined with at times unclear diction to make parts of the spoken narrative unintelligible; but there is nothing unclear about Ockham Razor’s powerful and eloquent physical performances.

Following the performances at the Peacock, Tess will go on a UK-wide tour. All details here