'LUKA' examines wounds in RI society

'LUKA' examines wounds in RI society

By Lauren Bain

JAKARTA (JP): Down a narrow street in Cikini, Central Jakarta,
the rehearsal studio is nightclub-hot and gymnasium-sweaty. A
huge white screen divides the space, a canvas for enormous
shadows of serpentine bodies, climbing and crawling all over each
other.

Colored lights flash around the room, deliberately
disorientating and distorting; music, like a nightmare
soundtrack, thumps out into the street and beyond. There are
about 30 performers involved in Teater Mandiri's production of
LUKA (Wound), and tonight, like most nights, they are working
hard.

Teater Mandiri -- under the direction of internationally
acclaimed writer and director Putu Wijaya -- will be
commemorating its 30th anniversary with the presentation of LUKA
in Jakarta, beginning on Friday until Sunday. LUKA is a loose
adaptation of the script The Coffin Is Too Big for the Hole by
Singaporean playwright Kuo Pao Kun, and was first performed by
Teater Mandiri late last year at the Festival of Asian Theater in
Tokyo. The adaptation of Pao Kun's script represents a shift for
Teater Mandiri, which prior to this work, had only ever performed
works by Putu. LUKA will tour to Yugoslavia in September.

The Coffin Is Too Big For the Hole is a story about a child
who is unable to bury his grandfather's coffin because it is too
big for the grave. Conflict ensues. Eventually, it is agreed that
the grandfather's coffin can be buried alongside a child's
because, when combined, their plots are big enough for both
coffins.

Putu explained that he chose to adapt The Coffin partly out of
necessity -- in order to accept the invitation to present a work
at the Festival of Asian Theater he had to work on one of Kuo Pao
Kun's scripts. However, he says that he also recognized
similarities between this work and some of his own works,
especially Aduh and Gerr, produced in 1974 and 1981 respectively,
which deal with the ritual of burial. He also felt that there was
a close connection between the themes in The Coffin and the
contemporary Indonesian political context.

"LUKA deals with the issue of difference and unity in
Indonesia ... in the past, difference was forbidden, for the sake
of national unity we had to ignore diversity. But difference
should be seen as a source of strength, and not as something
which needs to be suppressed," Putu said.

And diversity is something which is evident not only in the
theme of LUKA but in the composition of Teater Mandiri itself.
Members of the group include sinetron (teleseries) stars,
buskers, laborers, former thieves, students and young executives.
Their bodies are all sizes and shapes, and in rehearsal, each is
challenged to explore his/her personal physical limits.

Although Putu did translate The Coffin into Indonesian as a
starting point for creating LUKA, there is very little text or
dialog remaining in the final adaptation. Teater Mandiri has
always experimented with both text and nontext-based theatrical
forms, but since the early 1990s has moved away from using
written scripts. Its work combines elements of both traditional
Indonesian performance -- the influence of wayang kulit (leather
puppets) is obvious in its use of the shadow screen for example
-- and Western contemporary theater. Teater Mandiri's work has
variously been described as surreal, dreamlike, absurd,
postmodern and fragmented. At the same time, it is accessible,
deliberately left open for interpretation and politically
critical without being didactic.

One frequent criticism of Teater Mandiri's work is that it
always uses the same idioms, the same theatrical tricks. The
giant white screen, the use of shadows and sound to "terrorize"
audiences, have all become instantly recognizable trademarks of
the group's work. Images of violence and conflict, pounding
music, the sound of soldiers' running feet and the manipulation
of mass crowds -- definitely terrifying, definitely real for many
Indonesians -- but some critics argue that Teater Mandiri has
been producing this kind of theater for a long time.

Putu Wijaya argues, however, that despite using these
theatrical strategies in most of his works over the past 10 years
he is yet to exhaust all the possibilities. He delights in
manipulating images, testing and overstepping the boundaries of
shadow and light, challenging notions of what constitutes
"Indonesian theater".

In one fragment of LUKA, the shadows of 100 hands stretch
upward, trying to reach something, grabbing desperately at the
air. Do they want food? Water? A lift up into a boat? One might
be reminded of refugees, the tragedy in Sampit, the displacement
of thousands of Indonesians which has quietly slipped out of the
newspapers. Whether Putu Wijaya had this particular crisis in
mind when he made this image is not really the point: LUKA should
serve as a reminder of the crises happening far from the walls of
Gedung Kesenian Jakarta, and the impetus toward positive action.

LUKA will be performed at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta, March 23 to
March 25. Bookings and inquiries at tel. 3808283 or 3441982.
Tickets are Rp 25,000 and Rp 20,000.