Cluijte van Plaijerwater

Cluijte van Plaijerwater, a farce written by a member of Antwerp's Guild of St. Lucas, demonstrates another approach toward the entertainment aspect of these "thoughtful" plays. In the play, an innkeeper's wife, faking illness, sends her gullible husband on a quest for plaijerwater ('wonderwater', but with the connotations of 'wound water' or 'hoax water') which she instructs him he will find:

At Discontent, in Eastland, where it flows high up
From the Mountain of Folly near the Valley of Sorrows.

After the husband departs, the wife's priest/lover returns. Herr Werenbacht, the hapless husband is alerted to the deception being carried out on him by a poultry-peddler. The two of them decide to return and catch the wife and her lover in the act. The peddler hides the husband in his basket and sets out to gain lodging in the inn. The wife and the priest almost immediately begin to flirt in front of the peddler.

Unaware of the husband's presence, the priest sings a song to entertain his mistress,

Oh Werenbracht, you're such a joy!
Your wife's made you her errand boy!
The road is rough, you're fool enough
To walk a week to find that stuff,
I'm telling you true.

At the height of the merrymaking, Werenbracht jumps out of the basket and angrily thrashes the lovers. The play ends with a little speech by Werebracht summarizing the lesson that he's learned:

Let us honor all decent women
Who are happy to be with their own husbands,
Now go and may Mary protect you all,
And her son, Jesus of Nazareth,
And may he grant you all peace and happiness.
Conduct your marriage in such a way
That you may enjoy life everlasting.

Toneel Antwerpen Typical Rederijker love of wordplay is evidenced by the fun the script milks from the varying connotations of the term plaijerwater. Allegory appears in wife's directions to the mythical substance. However, Cluijte van Plaijerwater's simple message and is stated fairly explicitly and not allowed to get in the way of the plot's potential for crowd-pleasing broad physical comedy. Rederijkers always strove to write plays that illustrated a message, but the resulting performances were not always dry and thinly disguised sermons on morality.

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