A pure woman and a flawed author

Telling the story of a stage production of Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Thomas Hardy’s friendship  with its leading lady, the stage play A Pure Woman is a brilliant evocation of the era and the writer.

    Throughout the play, Hardy is writing poetry, some of it love poems to his friend or mistress, a young woman six decades his junior and half the age of his second wife. The moment Florence Hardy discovers these poems on her husband’s desk is heartbreaking. There’s no evidence that the affair was anything more than inappropriate infatuation on Hardy’s part, but even the suspicion of it is sad.
    The three actors told the story beautifully, shedding light on the man who created one of English literature’s finest novels.
    Flawed authors are often as interesting as flawed characters. Tess’s flaws are largely imposed on her by others’ actions or inactions - Joan Durbeyfield has a lot to answer for, in failing to prepare her daughter for the potentially disastrous attentions of men like Alec d’Urberville. That doesn’t mean they’re any less tragic.
    Watching an elderly man (the actor was significantly younger than Hardy’s 84 years) pursue a young woman whose only intention is to follow her dreams on stage was also somewhat tragic, although with very different results.