Far From the Madding Crowd preview: Oxford Playhouse

5:17pm Wednesday 1st October 2008

Staging a an epic work such as Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd is an enormous challenge — but director Kate Saxon is convinced she can bring this story of love and loss to life without presenting pastoral cuteness or melodramatic hysteria. She promises there will be neither fluffy sheep nor windswept clinches in the English Touring Theatre’s production, at the Oxford Playhouse from Tuesday to next Saturday.

Adapted for the stage by Mark Healy, the tale will take on a muscular and dynamic style. As Kate explains, these are farming folk of the earth, workers at one with Hardy’s seasons. "When Mark and I talked about a fast-moving script that could move seamlessly in a filmic way between scenes, we knew that choosing the right creative team was the key."

She began by reuniting the core team from The French Lieutenant’s Woman, which she and Mark worked on together a couple of years ago. These included designer Libby Watson and movement director Georgina Lamb.“Because we have worked together a lot, we have an easy short-hand and like using ‘one solution' sets where all the action can extend to the whole space, or the space can be divided to create several places at once.”

Far from the Madding Crowd was published in 1874 in serial form. It is the first of what became known as Hardy’s Wessex novels, set in a fictitious English county closely resembling his native Dorset. The tale centrs on the headstrong and passionate Bathsheba Everdene who has inherited her father’s farm in Weatherbury. She arrives there to find three very different suitors: the loyal and constant shepherd Gabriel Oak, the reclusive gentleman farmer Mr Boldwood and the dashing but reckless Sergeant Troy. In their pursuit of the elusive Bathsheba, her wayward nature leads her to tragedy and true love.

Fiddle players, flautists, guitarists and percussionists within the company will supply live music, and the farming community will come to life in dance when the story calls for it.

Tickets can be booked on 01865 305305 (www.oxfordplayhouse.com).

Editor's choice