Indonesian artists: From supermarket to TV screen

Indonesian artists: From supermarket to TV screen

JAKARTA (JP): In the course of their career, Indonesia's TV film actors travel the path wide screen stars once trod. Everything is mere repetition and until now not a single actor can attribute their career to a formal education in acting.

Take, for example, Ayu Ashari, now considered the highest-paid A-grade actress. Only by fluke did she begin her career as an actor. One day in the 1980s, Ayu, a high school student known as Siti Khadijah, was eating bakso (meatballs) during a break.

Franky Rorimpandey, a member of a film crew assigned to hunt for new faces, happened to pass and caught sight of this pretty and sexy young girl. She was offered to join a film production as an extra assuming a new name, Ayu Ashari.

So Ayu joined Populer theatrical workshop led by Teguh Karya. Unfortunately, she had to quit after a while because of her busy schedule.

Between the 1970s and 1980s, the heydays of Indonesian full- length films, a talent scout might find a prospective actor in a school, a public place or at a night spot. Nurul Arifin, now frequently appearing in TV films, was discovered in a discotheque in Bandung shortly after she was elected "Disco Queen". A few years ago TV film director Nasry Cheppy found Venna Melinda in a cineplex.

Sometimes talent scouts go to universities to see whether there are potential actors among pretty students. Hence a number of actors are still studying although some have suspended their studies or even dropped out altogether.

Talent scouting are also conducted during beauty contests or similar competitions for cover girls, cover boys, beach queens, queen of glasses and the like.

Many TV film actors have photo-modeling or cat-walking as their background. Unfortunately, once they switch profession, they become too busy with TV film production contracts at the expense of gaining acting skills, both in theory and in practice.

As a result TV film fans have to content themselves with only sexy and young, pretty or handsome faces only. It seems what counts to these new actors are how to memorize dialogs and to be able to speak in a natural tone, the way they do in real life.

"To be honest, I have never felt satisfied with my acting or shown my acting abilities as best I can," said Adjie Pangestu, a TV film actor.

Adjie has put down his inability to show his best in acting to the fact that he often receives a shooting call only a day before the shooting takes place. Frequently, he is not informed of what scene he will be involved in on a particular shooting day. Don't be surprised to learn that Adjie may come to shooting locations unprepared. Even dialog memorization is usually done on location, he added.

Adjie's experience is also shared by most TV film actors: memorizing dialogs on location and being mentally and emotionally unprepared for the characters they are going to assume.

While many of them realize their shortcomings and earnestly wish to learn acting, joining a formal school is unthinkable. This means reducing their opportunities to sign film contracts for a few years.

Therefore they prefer to have just a brief acting course. Unfortunately, the quality of many of such courses, some run by famous actors, available is still questionable.

Some have a strong wish to appear on stage. Even famous stars in Hollywood or in Europe used to perform on stage before joining films. When they are offered to perform in theater, however, their shooting schedule may already be too tight. Another constraint is that to appear in a theatrical performance, they must rehearse for some three months.

So they turn their attention to comedy shows like Ketoprak Humor, in which they can appear as guest stars. Not much will be demanded from them. They only have to crack jokes and entertain the audience. They can also do this without rehearsals.

Last July a few TV film actors like Ulfa Dwiyanti, Addjie Pangestu and Indra Safera appeared in Djoko Tingkir at Senayan Sports Hall, Jakarta. They expressed their dissatisfaction because the show was a flop.

"I would like to have a serious role, for example by joining Theater Koma," said Indra Safera, referring to the country's most prolific theater group.

Robinsar Simanjuntak, 33, head of the School of Performing Arts of the Jakarta Institute of the Arts (IKJ), admitted that only a few people are interested in joinning the department of theater.

"Many parents do not agree with their children joining IKJ because most of them hold on to the belief that an actor will have a gloomy future," he said. "Every year we only receive some 30 new students."

He said the institute does not have a special course on how to act in a TV production. The main subjects are about performing arts and theatrical acting. So, IKJ does not feel guilty for being able to introduce new artists for TV or movies.

IKJ, however, has introduced a number of good actors, such as Didi Petet, Cok Simbara, Mathias Muchus, Deddy Miswar and Ray Sahetappy. (Tuti Gintini)