Tess of the D'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy

Theatre

The novel was adapted for the stage in 1897. The production by Lorimer Stoddard proved a Broadway triumph for actress Minnie Maddern Fiske when it opened on 2 March 1897.[14] A copyright performance was given at St James's Theatre in London on the same date.[15] It was revived in America in 1902 and then made into a motion picture by Adolph Zukor in 1913, starring Mrs. Fiske; no copies remain.

In the UK, an adaptation, Tess, by H. Mountford, opened at the Grand Theatre in Blackpool on 5 January 1900.[15]

Tess, a different stage adaptation by H. A. Kennedy, premièred at the Coronet Theatre in London's Notting Hill Gate on 19 February 1900.[15] Mrs Lewis Waller (Florence West) played the title role, with William Kettridge as Angel Clare and Whitworth Jones as Alec Tantridge.[16] The play transferred to the Comedy Theatre for 17 performances from 14 April 1900 with a slightly different cast, including Fred Terry as Alec and Oswald Yorke as Angel.[17]

In 1924, Hardy wrote a British theatrical adaptation and chose Gertrude Bugler, a Dorchester girl from the original Hardy Players to play Tess.[18] The Hardy Players (re-formed in 2005) was an amateur group from Dorchester that re-enacted Hardy's novels. Bugler was acclaimed,[19] but prevented from taking the London stage part by the jealousy of Hardy's wife Florence; Hardy had said that young Gertrude was the true incarnation of the Tess he had imagined. Years before writing the novel, Hardy had been inspired by the beauty of her mother Augusta Way, then an 18-year-old milkmaid, when he visited Augusta's father's farm in Bockhampton. When Hardy saw Bugler (he rehearsed The Hardy Players at the hotel run by her parents), he immediately recognised her as a young image of the now older Augusta.[18]

The novel was successfully adapted for the stage several more times:

• 1946: An adaptation by playwright Ronald Gow became a triumph on the West End starring Wendy Hiller.
• 1999: Tess of the d'Urbervilles, a new West End musical with music by Stephen Edwards and lyrics by Justin Fleming opens in London at the Savoy Theatre.
• 2007: Tess, The New Musical (a rock opera) with lyrics, music and libretto by Annie Pasqua and Jenna Pasqua premières in New York City.
• 2009: Tess of the d'Urbervilles, a new stage adaptation with five actors was produced in London by Myriad Theatre & Film.
• 2010: Tess, a new rock opera, is an official Next Link Selection at the New York Musical Theatre Festival with music, lyrics, and libretto by Annie Pasqua and Jenna Pasqua.
• 2011: Tess of the d'Urbervilles, adapted from the original 1924 script by Devina Symes for Norrie Woodhall, the last surviving member of Hardy’s theatrical group, the Hardy Players. Three extra scenes were included at Woodhall's request, including the final one,[20] staged as Woodhall described it from her own appearance in Hardy's original adaptation: "Tess, accompanied by Angel Clare, is arrested by a phalanx of constables for the murder of her other suitor Alec d'Urberville at sunrise, after a night spent within the bluestone towers of a lonely henge on the bleak and wind swept expanse of Salisbury Plain."
• 2012: Tess of the d'Urbervilles was produced into a piece of musical theatre by Youth Music Theatre UK as part of their summer season, and further developed, edited and performed in 2017 at the Theatre Royal, Winchester, and The Other Palace, London in 2018.
• 2019: Tess - The Musical,[21] a new British musical by composer Michael Blore and playwright Michael Davies,[22] received a workshop production at The Other Place, the Royal Shakespeare Company's studio theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, in February 2019.

Opera

1906: An Italian operatic version written by Frederic d'Erlanger was first performed in Naples, but the run was cut short by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius. When the opera came to London three years later, Hardy, then 69, attended the premiere.

Film and television

The story has also been filmed at least eight times, including three for general release through cinemas and four television productions.

Cinema

• • 1913: The "lost" silent version, mentioned under Theatre, starring Minnie Maddern Fiske as Tess and Scots-born David Torrence as Alec.
  • 1924: Another lost silent version was made with Blanche Sweet (Tess), Stuart Holmes (Alec), and Conrad Nagel (Angel).
  • 1944: Man Ki Jeet, Indian Hindi-language film adaptation directed by W. Z. Ahmed.[23]
  • 1967: Dulhan Ek Raat Ki, Indian Hindi-language film starring Nutan, Dharmendra and Rehman.[24]
  • 1979: Roman Polanski's film Tess with Nastassja Kinski (Tess), Leigh Lawson (Alec), and Peter Firth (Angel).
  • 1996: Prem Granth, Indian Hindi-language film adaptation directed by Rajiv Kapoor - starring Rishi Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit in the lead roles.[23]
  • 2000: Nishiddha Nodi is an Indian Assamese-language film by Bidyut Chakrabarty, based on the novel, produced by the Assam State Film (Finance and Development) Corporation and released on 18 February 2000.[25]
  • 2011: Michael Winterbottom 21st-century Indian set film Trishna with Freida Pinto and Riz Ahmed.

Television

• • 1952: BBC TV, directed by Michael Henderson, and starring Barbara Jefford (Tess), Michael Aldridge (Alec), and Donald Eccles (Angel).
  • 1960: ITV, ITV Play of the Week, "Tess", directed by Michael Currer-Briggs, and starring Geraldine McEwan (Tess), Maurice Kaufmann (Alec), and Jeremy Brett (Angel).
  • 1998: London Weekend Television's three-hour mini-series Tess of the D'Urbervilles, directed by Ian Sharp, and starring Justine Waddell (Tess), Jason Flemyng (Alec), and Oliver Milburn (Angel), the latter Dorset-born.
  • 2008: A four-hour BBC adaptation, written by David Nicholls, aired in the United Kingdom in September and October 2008 in four parts,[26] and in the United States on the PBS series Masterpiece Classic in January 2009 in two parts.[27] The cast included Gemma Arterton (Tess), Hans Matheson (Alec), Eddie Redmayne (Angel), Ruth Jones (Joan), Anna Massey (Mrs d'Urberville), and Kenneth Cranham (Reverend James Clare).[28]
  • 2020: The BBC Radio 4 series "Hardy's Women" featured a three-part adaptation of the novel from Tess's perspective.[29]