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.