Contemporary theater
Contemporary theater
On a four-month trip from England around the world studying
contemporary theater in India, Indonesia, Canada and the U.S., I
was interested to read in The Jakarta Post, (Sunday, June 15)
about the struggle for survival of traditional forms of theater
here.
Growing tourism will help keep these alive into the next
millennium and with Indonesia's rapidly developing economic
wealth, I am sure that Indonesians will also demand more than
what most television stations presently offer: a diet of soap
that leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
But what about non-traditional theater? I can only speak from
very limited knowledge of the contemporary scene, but from what I
have experienced already I would say that this aspect of
Indonesian cultural life deserves support and success.
My own directorial work has been particularly with the work of
Shakespeare, and having heard in the United Kingdom of the work
done at Taman Ismail Marzuki, I was delighted a few days ago to
be invited to watch a rehearsal of Theater Lembaga's presentation
of Julius Caesar, one of Shakespeare's most powerful political
plays, directed by Joseph Ginting and A Azuzan JG, to be staged
in July at the Graha Bhakti Budaya building at TIM.
A month ago I saw Shakespeare's Hamlet performed in northern
India and the aim of the production was obvious to ape a
traditional British form of presentation -- that most Britons
would now consider very old-fashioned. Like many of Shakespeare's
plays Hamlet can be set in any time and any place, and gain new
life and relevance from this transposition. One example is the
recent screen enactment of Romeo and Juliet set in Miami Beach in
the 1990s, a long way from Verona. This excellent interpretation
was recently released in Indonesia. But the Indian version of
Hamlet did not portray anything of India or the twentieth
century, or the people of the time which I think it should have
done.
On the other hand, Theater Lembaga's Julius Caesar benefits
from a visually exciting and physical setting that seems to owe
more to Eastern than Western theater traditions. The important
crowd scenes are particularly dynamic, with superb groupings and
brilliantly choreographed movement. The acting is more passionate
than you will see in much Western theater, and as a non-
Indonesian speaker I followed every nuance of their moods. The
specially composed music heightens the action and themes of the
play, and the contemporary Indonesian costumes help to intensify
the personal and political messages of the play.
To me, as a Western practitioner, this production exemplifies
what theater can -- and should -- do: take the traditions of the
past and mold them to the needs of today and tomorrow.
Shakespeare may have lived four centuries ago on a small offshore
European island, but he is now a citizen of the world who can be
used to help strengthen theater and other arts everywhere. It is
not such a long jump from 1590s London to 1990s Jakarta. With
work such as Theater Lembaga's, contemporary theater seems to be
in safe hands. I urge your readers to see this production to
experience what theater can teach us about ourselves and our
society on the brink of the next millennium.
MICHAEL DAY
Director of Drama
Giggleswick, UK