Leaving the Labyrinth: Hella S. Haasse's A Thread in the Dark (De Draad in het donker)

Leaving the Labyrinth: Hella S. Haasse's A Thread in the Dark (De Draad in hetdonkerl FRANCES BABBAGE [W]e cannot rephrase it for you. If we CQuld, why would we trouble to show you the mYlh?2 The history of modem drama offers many examples of plays based on mythic narratives, but, as a strategy, the re-visioning of myth has had particular importance within contemporary women's playwriting. In Britain, Caryl Churchill, Maureen Duffy, Sarah Daniels, and Timberlake Wertenbaker have all taken classical mythology as a stimulus for new writing. In France and Italy, the work of Helene Cixous and Franca Rame provides further examples .3 When the diversity of this theatrical practice is considered even briefly, it becomes clear that the range of work, firstly, is far more complex than a simple identification of feminist "heroines," and, secondly, does not signify an escapist retreat into fantasy from the "real world." As Rita Felski has observed in relation to feminist literature, "[al celebration of subjectivity, spirituality , and myth does not necessarily imply a lack of commitment to social and political change.'" The playwrights I mention here, and the re-visionings of myth they offer, have received considerable critical attention in terms both of their approaches to specific narratives and of their relationship to a wider feminist project. In this essay, however, I wish to consider a somewhat earlier example, and one that is likely to be unfamiliar to the majority of readers. Written by the Dutch playwright Hella S. Haasse in the late 1950s, A Thread in the Dark won the Visser Neerlandia Prize in 1962 and has since been performed many times in Holland and Flanders. It was also translated and performed in Indonesia in 1975, with the story transposed to ancient Bali.' Haasse was born in 1918, studied as an actress, and in the post-war period wrote several historical novels and biographies, as well as plays;6 as an author, she is perhaps better known for her literary than for her dramatic output. A Thread in the Dark is "the more frequently performed" of Haasse's theatre Modern Drama, 43:1 (Spring 2000) 120 Haasse's A Thread in the Dark 121 pieces.' In its reworking of classical mythology, Mieke Kolk sees the playas "follow[ing] the predominantly French tradition" of the [930S and 1940s, established by Giraudoux, Sartre, Anouilh, and Yourcenar, "of rewriting classical tragedy ... from a modem existential point of view."s Other sources also indicate that "[t]he pre-war French theatrical philosophers" were a major influence on the 1950S Dutch theatre, whose repertoire of plays - primarily foreign, at this time, rather than indigenous - tended to focus heavily on "debate on the moral and philosophical problems of war" and on issues of "individual responsibility.''9 This aptly describes A Thread in the Dark, which focuses in particular on the role myth can play in support of political power. A Thread in the Dark is based on the classical myth of Ariadne, Theseus, and the Minotaur. According to Ovid, the Minotaur was a monster - half-bull, half-man - the offspring of King Minos of Crete's wife Pasiphae and a white bull sent from the sea by Poseidon. When grown, the hybrid creature, which ate human flesh, was shut away by Minos in a highly complex labyrinth. From then on at regular intervals Athens provided seven youths and seven maidens to be sent into the labyrinth as a sacrifice to the Minotaur; this "tribute" was made in order to protect Athens from invasion by Minos's annies. Eventually the Athenian prince Theseus determined to stop the sacrifices by going into the labyrinth himself to fight the monster; he was aided by Minos's daughter Ariadne, who gave him a ball of thread that he was able to use to find his way back out from the maze when he had killed the Minotaur. Theseus, Ariadne his promised bride - and the rest of the Athenians departed from Crete by ship; however, after landing at Naxos, Theseus left Ariadne asleep on the shore and set sail. Ovid describes this abandonment as "cruel," but offers no explanations for it; Robert Graves suggests, drawing on variants of...