A Pair of Blue Eyes

This specific production does not yet have a description, but the play itself does:

Elfride Swancourt,raised by her father since her mother died giving birth , has come to an age when her beloved father, Parson Swancourt who is anyway too busy with various hugely unsuccessful money making schemes, can no longer give her the attention she craves. A lonely, wild and rebellious 19 year old teenager, stuck in a remote parish on the Cornish coast – with only her spiky maid and confidante Unity for company who seems more interested in spending time with local sexton and “philosopher” Martin Cannister -, Elfride is bored and ready for the adventures she has up to now lived through the pages of romantic novels.
So when a young architect from “glamorous” London comes down to make plans for the restoration of the church , she instantly falls for the stranger with ‘a face as pretty as her own’. In turn, genuine and honest Stephen Smith’s head is in a whirl with Elfride’s cleverness and unpredictability. After a stay in London where Stephen confesses to his sceptical mentor Henry Knight of his love for this ‘wild and untouched flower from the West’, he returns to Cornwall with a mysterious secret to tell which makes him doubly attractive – particularly when Elfride sees him kissing a woman in the shadows. As intelligent as she is vain Elfride enjoys playing ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’, torturing him when she discovers that Stephen, self educated and much of it through the help of his friend Knight is not as sophisticated as he at first seemed. When Stephen painfully confesses that he is actually the working class son of the local mason, snobbish Parson Swancourt is appalled and throws him out of the house. Incensed and excited by this turn of events, Elfride agrees to elope with Stephen to get married but her nerve fails her at the last minute.
Elfride promises to wait for him while he goes to make his fortune in India In the meantime, one of Swancourt’s money making schemes has come to fruition in the way of marrying rich widow Charlotte. After a period of growing up and social awareness in the company of her new step-mother in London, she is courted by none other than witty, Oxbridge educated Henry Knight, who also happens to be the harsh reviewer of her published romance. At first she stays faithful to Stephen and delights in taking Knight on but soon, in spite of herself, falls in love with his wit and sophistication. They become irretrievably committed to one and other when, in a dramatic cliff hanging scene, Elfride saves his life. Stephen, who has continued to send love letters and even money to his betrothed back home, returns on holiday and is heart broken to learn from Knight himself, that he and Elfride are engaged to be married. Nobly, Stephen returns to India without revealing his own past involvement with Elfride. However, Elfride’s vitality and hunger for life is starting to be suffocated by her guilty secret and Knight’s obsessive insistence on virginal perfection in a woman which he believes to have found in his bride to be. Mrs Jethway, a local woman who blames her for her own son’s death and had seen her elope with Stephen, sends Knight a letter informing him of the scandal concerning Elfride . Knight brutally breaks off the engagement. Elfride, desperately, runs after Knight but is brought back, broken, by her father.
A few years later, Stephen, now a renowned architect and an embittered Knight meet in London. The love of both men for Elfride is rekindled by their conversation. Unbeknown to each other, they both decide to travel down to Cornwall, each with the intention of proposing to her again ; unaware of the double blow that they are about to receive on their arrival.

Cast & Crew

Cast

Observations

1. On 2^nd January 2012 at 5:57 p.m., Fiorella Ruas noted:

   In 1870 Thomas Hardy, then 30, went to Cornwall to work on the restoration of a parrish church – and later married the rector’s sister in law. A Pair Of Blue Eyes, his first autobiographical work, was published three years later. It describes a romantic triangle involving the daughter of the manse, a visting architect and his mentor, a literary critic. Hardy’s mentor, Horace Maule, killed himself after reviewing the book.
   In this new adapatation by jonathan Pett and Fiorella Ruas, Elfride, the 19 year old coquette, teases to distraction the hearts and minds of the two earnest Victorian worthies with her capricious charm. Amelia Curtis catches the little girl vulnerability forced on to a strong willed woman as a survival ploy in a stuffed shirt world.
   The detail is delicious in the playing of Phillip Brook and Alex Lowe as her suitors – the working class aspirant and the dominant intellectual. In Christopher Hynes fluid production, hopping from drawing room to cliff top on the Coventry Belgrade’s stage, is real insight into Hardy’s world.

2. On 2^nd January 2012 at 5:58 p.m., Fiorella Ruas noted:

   Review, The Guardian

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