Journey of a king's loyal court servant

Journey of a king's loyal court servant

Kartika Bagus C., The Jakarta Post, Surakarta, Central Java

What kind of loyalty grows, becomes rooted in our lives and
remains with us even in death? What actually is the essence and
significance of such loyalty? Is it at all likely that anybody
has such deep loyalty?

These questions could be answered only after we finished
watching Le Voyage de Penazar (Voyage of Kartala), a performance
blending the elements of theater, music and the art of shadow
puppetry (a monologue Javanese style).

This performance, a collaboration of Surakarta artist Slamet
Gundono and French artist Francois Cervantes, was held at the
Surakarta Cultural Art Center on Wednesday, Aug. 21, and also at
the premises of the French-Indonesian Institute (LIP) Yogyakarta
on Thursday, Aug. 22.

Le Voyage de Penazar dwells on the voyage made by Kartala, a
loyal court servant of the 14th century King of Jenggala, a Hindu
kingdom in East Java later destroyed by the Majapahit Kingdom.

Kartala is very loyal to his king. His loyalty resembles the
loyalty of Arjuna's court servants in leather puppet stories,
namely the four royal servants: Semar (the leader), Gareng (his
first son), Petruk (his second son) and Bagong (his third son).
Thanks to the deep loyalty of these four court servants, Arjuna
can appear as a hero who his opponents greatly respect.

Kartala is also very loyal to his king. At one time, he is
thrown hundreds of years into the future but his loyalty to the
King of Jenggala does not dim. He takes it upon himself, at any
time, to serve and respect his king.

So, Kartala visits thousands of places in search of his king:
Bali, India and Islamic countries like Pakistan, Iraq and Iran.
He meets thousands of people of various skin colors, traditions
and languages. Still, nobody understand his loyalty to his king.

As he spends too much time on his journey, Kartala begins to
lose the main purpose of this journey. His life is tossed in the
a long and tiring passage of time. Finally, out of great
suffering, he dies.

That night, Kartala, the protagonist of this tragedy, was
excellently played by Catherine Germain, whose beautiful acting
was balanced out by the skillful performance of Slamet Gundono, a
puppet master of Surakarta.

This performance, staged jointly by Compagnie 93-92 Enterprise
of France and Negeri Suket of Surakarta, showed that cultural and
traditional differences can be removed in a neat and meaningful
art collaboration.

The playwright of the French play, Francois Cervantes, and
Javanese artist Slamet Gundono, with his thickly accented Tegal
dialect, could substantiate a blend of performing arts despite
the different languages used.

The performance, supported by music played by Dodo, Erwan,
Priyo and Dhiro and jointly stage-managed by Catherine Basset,
Adi Muhadi and Yusdi, glued the audience filling the performance
hall that night to their seats.

Le Voyage de Penazar is Cervantes's latest work and his first
in which traditional masks are used as the main idea of the play
and his medium of expression. The play was written in 1999 when
Cervantes and Catherine went to an antique shop and found a
traditional mask. This mask inspired Cervantes to write this
monologue, which Catherine Germain has successfully performed
more than 150 times in France.

Slamet Gundono said that this work was interesting in that it
was not realistic. The story of Kartala is a jump in time,
something which is next to impossible to take place in real life.
Gundono said, however, that he was pleased with this
collaboration because the main thing in art practices is the
realization of freedom of expression.

As for Cervantes himself as the playwright, he said this play
described loyalty. Loyalty to one's dedication, including loyalty
to the traditional arts. He said that this play began only with a
mask he happened to come across in an antique shop. The mask
later inspired him to write a story of the journey the mask had
made.

So, loyalty lies in the human heart.