The Laundry

An amalgam of comedy, satire, and melodrama, this "new wave" version of the ancient Minotaur myth is set in the laundry of a provincial French town, with rows of drying sheets serving as an eerie labyrinth. Counterpart of the classical Pasiphae is Madame Yvonne, a laundress whose hideously deformed son Daniel is the modern Minotaur. He is kept hidden in her attic for some twenty years until Laurent, Madame Yvonne's opportunistic son-in-law (Theseus), talks the family into selling Daniel to a side show. A mesmeric circus impresario proclaims monsters to be "the true heroes of modern times" and proceeds to instruct Daniel in the ways of being a god. Beast is transformed into reluctant saint and his captors, in turn, become monsters. The family confesses its accumulated guilt to the Christ-like Minotaur, but when he refuses to face the impatient throng waiting for him outside, Laurent murders him. "The Laundry" was hailed as "arresting and uncommonly provocative" by New York Times drama critic Howard Taubman, and by Newsweek as "one of the town's sharper theatrical excitements ... a haunting mixture of melodrama and mythology."