[Hardy-l] Tess

[Jackie Wilkinson]

     I have hesitated to comment on the production of Tess because I am
still cogitating over it. Above all, I liked this version of Tess herself:
naive yet strong, enduring yet vulnerable. I liked the haziness of the
seduction sequence in that it was true to Hardy's own words: 'The obscurity
was now so great that he could see absolutely nothing but a pale
nebulousness at his feet' and this for me left open the everlasting debate
regarding Tess as a compliant or resisting. Even when the plot strayed from
the book it was replaced by an atmosphere which I found truly Hardian, often
appearing to have been drawn from scenes in his previous novels. There is
one beautiful moment when Tess, dressed in her dun-coloured garb sinks down
beneath the tree, becoming in that moment an integral part of the earth
itself . There were moments which annoyed me, particularly the fact that
Tess does not wear her red ribbon in the club dancing sequence, a minor
detail one might think, but for me central to Tess as signifier.
     All in all I thought it was sincere attempt to convey Hardy's concerns
and Tess's sufferings to a modern audience. I believe a version which
adheres strictly to the book form can often be sterile and it is always
helpful to remember that the production is 'based' on Hardy's novel, and
further, that the audience for which it is intended is a twenty-first
century audience as opposed to a nineteenth-century one and I feel this
production managed to walk the line between the two pretty adeptly - well,
that's what I thought for what it's worth.
     All the best,
     Jacky Wilkinson
     Lancaster University
     
     
     -----Original Message-----
From: Rosemarie Morgan [mailto:Rosemarie.morgan at yale.edu] 
Sent: 13 October 2008 20:00
To: hardy-l at coyote.csusm.edu
Subject: RE: [Hardy-l] Tess