Theatre
The Good Hope
Op hoop van zegen
Herman Heijermans · 1900
Opening lines
Clémentine
Nou dan! – Cobùs!
Well then! Cobus!
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
Kniertje, a widow in a fishing village, has already lost her husband and two of her sons to the sea. The shipowner Clemens Bos is about to send out to sea an old boat that the village considers poorly maintained and unsafe, and he wants the widow's two remaining boys aboard: Geert, the elder, who is just out of prison, and Barend, the younger, who refuses to sign on. Kniertje needs their wages to live, and her sons do not want to go.
Context
The play, in four acts, was premiered in 1900 by the Nederlandsche Tooneelvereeniging, with Esther de Boer-van Rijk in the role of Kniertje, and appeared in volume form the following year. It denounces shipowners who send rotten hulls to sea to collect the insurance, and it has been read as an indictment of the whole system. It has been adapted several times in English, and brought to the screen four times in the Netherlands, in 1918, 1924, 1934 and 1986, the same actress reprising the role in the first films.
Who it is for
Four acts in Dutch, with the speech of the fishermen of the coast. The play can also be read in English.
Prizes and reception
Its author's most popular play and the most widely performed Dutch text abroad, still on the stage; cited in the 2002 canon survey.