She Opened the Door - Press Release

PRESS RELEASE – Hardy play hits the pages

Acclaimed Dorset playwright Peter John Cooper has been writing and directing plays for the past 40 years. But for him writing a book is something new. With the help of local publisher Roving Press, his hugely successful play She Opened the Door, together with notes on the historical context and what inspired Peter to write the play, is now available in book form, providing a fascinating insight into the troubled relationship between Hardy and his first wife Emma.

Acclaimed Dorset playwright Peter John Cooper has been writing and directing plays for the past 40 years. But for him writing a book is something new. With the help of local publisher Roving Press, his hugely successful play She Opened the Door, together with notes on the historical context and what inspired Peter to write the play, is now available in book form, providing a fascinating insight into the troubled relationship between Hardy and his first wife Emma.

‘What’s unique about this book,’ says Julie Musk from Roving Press, ‘is that it combines the complete script of the play with Peter’s research, thoughts and inspiration – showing something of how a playwright’s mind works. Moreover, I loved seeing the play performed, but the intricacies and subtleties of plot are clearer on the page, as you have more time to digest them.’

Peter’s play is a fantasy set one afternoon in September 1895 when the manuscript for Jude the Obscure needs to be returned to the publisher. Emma is threatening to burn it in the garden of Max Gate and, but for the intervention of Thomas’s Mother, the Maid and ‘the Other Woman’, the book might be lost forever.

The play is witty, poetic and occasionally shocking, with hidden references and quotations from Hardy’s own works. Peter says, ‘I wanted to show that Hardy was truly a man of his time, a cutting-edge, contemporary writer, who was caught up in the feminist movement’. Peter’s attempt to understand something of the man by looking at the women who surrounded him is both original and ground-breaking. 

Full colour pictures of the AsOne Theatre Company performing on stage bring the play to life. The book is being launched at Max Gate on 17 August and books will be available direct from Roving Press (www.rovingpress.co.uk, tel 01300 321531) and locally, priced £7.99.

END: 26 July 2012

For information contact

Julie Musk

Roving Press

info@rovingpress.co.uk

01300 321531

www.rovingpress.co.uk

See our website for further details.

If you would like a review copy or to interview the author, or require larger or higher-resolution images please let us know.