Cirebon's 'wayang cepak' tradition still hanging on ...

By Paul W. Blair

BANDUNG (JP): For the next four days the lobby of the Chedi Hotel in Bandung will be even fuller than usual with well over a hundred intriguing new faces on hand to greet visitors. They belong to Cirebon-style wayang golek puppets in a remarkable month-long exhibit which began on Aug. 2 as part of the hotel's continuing initiative to showcase the traditional arts of Indonesia.

The main focus on the Chedi Hotel exhibition is a full set of well-used wayang cepak puppets loaned by the Indramayu dalang Warsad. They have been stuck into two banana tree trunks much as they would be during a traditional all-night wayang show. In conjunction with the exhibit's opening, two abbreviated shows were staged at the hotel: one featuring Warsad and another the well-known Cirebon dalang Marta.

Warsad also brought several dozen of his hand-carved puppets to sell to visitors. His wife made the costumes. Also on display are some remarkable miniature puppets created for the Chedi event by Rini Joeda, a Bandung-based designer active in encouraging local artisans. Although they're too small for a real performance, each of her puppets is exquisitely carved, painted and outfitted, then displayed on gold-painted wooden stand. They will continue to be available at the Chedi's gift shop even after the current exhibit ends on Sunday evening.

Wayang golek refers to the traditional Indonesian puppet dramas using three-dimensional stick puppets carved from wood. Wayang cepak, a sub-division of the genre, may date back as far as the 15th century. It originates in the Cirebon area and uses puppets that have flatter, more angular and more highly stylized faces than those usually seen in Bandung. And, while the wayang purwa plays from Bandung are based on episodes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata epics, wayang cepak plays come from the Babad Cirebon history of nine pious leaders who helped spread Islam through Java. Some other stories are taken from Panji fairy tales and other legends well-known along the coast near Cirebon.

Although the stories they tell include a variety of non- Islamic elements, wayang cepak plays are often held in conjunction with Moslem holy days. They are also used in Chinese New Year celebrations in Cirebon temples. Whatever the venue, these puppet shows have always served as a medium for the exchange of wisdom, information and gossip as well as pure entertainment.

Many of the puppet characters in wayang cepak are analogous to those familiar in the wayang purwa and wayang kulit (shadow puppet) traditions. The clown named Lamsijan, for example, is the local incarnation of Cepot, the red-faced rascal who is one of the most easily recognizable characters in any wayang purwa set.

A full set of Cirebon puppets is likely to contain 90 to 100 puppets in all, just like a complete Bandung set. But almost every puppet in a wayang purwa set has its own name and identity. A wayang cepak set contains many more interchangeable characters. No dalang would ever mix puppets from the two traditions in a single performance.

Recounted in the program notes published in conjunction with the Chedi Hotel exhibit is an incident at a recent all-night wayang cepak show held in Waled Kota village near Cirebon. As a musical interlude was about to end, a young local resident thrust a handful of 1,000-rupiah notes into the face of the dalang in charge of the performance with the request that the puppets' reappearance be postponed.

"More songs, please!" he urged. "You can have the golek show later!"

The dalang, still smiling, seemed to understand the situation. He told his pesinden (singer) to keep the music going for a while longer. Then she and the music group swung into the popular Cirebon dangdut number called Nembe Ketemu. The young man and his friends continued to dance with abandon between the stage and the guests' seats. As soon as the music stopped and the puppet play resumed, the dancers disappeared, only to reappear with more banknotes and more requests for dangdut hits during the next musical interlude a couple of hours later.

The evening's performance typified the current state of wayang cepak in Cirebon in many ways. The dalang chose the story Raden Said Putra Demak and presented the story in Sundanese because Waled Kota is a Sundanese-speaking village. But when the show began at 7:00 p.m. in a village clearing, barely 30 villagers were on hand. And when the performance ended near 3:00 a.m., even the members of the village committee who'd hired the dalang and his troupe had gone home. Given this decreased level of interest and appreciation in local villages, wayang cepak is a tradition with an uncertain future. The Chedi Hotel exhibit, however, proves that the wayang cepak heritage is well worth preserving.