Het Kack-huys van de Hel De lotgevallen van een klucht

This article is about the audience's sense of humor in Amsterdam's city theatre in the seventeenth century, in relation to the production of farces. The focus is on Jan Vos's play Oene, one the most uncivilized plays ever staged in Amsterdam's theatre, featuring excessive sexual and moral misbehaviour in marriage and celebrating the triumph of deceit. It is a fine example of Amsterdam's theatre productions at the time, not only for its strong farcical powers, but also in the way this farce was produced for the theatre, employing and merging elements from the local play tradition, such as Jan Soet's contemporary farce of Jochem Jool, as well as integrating foreign sources, such as the Spanish visions of Hell, as described in Guevara's Suenos and translated as Spaensche Dromen in 1641. During its performance history, Jan Vos, as the playwright and prime director of the theatre, kept controlling and monitoring the farce's programming. Also, Vos devoted quite some time to upgrading the play's humor and societal impact.