'Madness' gives Enthus popularity

Blontank Poer, The Jakarta Post, Semarang

A standard guideline, or pakem, is like a scary ghost for traditional artists. Many artists have been considered violators of standard values, while others are said to pay little respect to the noble values of our cultural legacy.

It has frequently been the case, however, that the artist would simply like to interpret the pakem, which is abstract and has no clear parameters, and adjust it to the value system developing in society.

Pakem is a gray area and in this context a person's interest is the dominant factor in interpretation, especially when this person is accused of deviating from the guideline.

The proof is that the people accused of violating the prevailing pakem are mostly those who are successful in the market. They have good fortune as they receive a lot of requests for performances.

The controversy over Ki Enthus Susmono, a Javanese leather puppet master, is a case in point. Hailing from Slawi, Tegal regency, Central Java, he used to be the target of ridicule and criticism by academic experts of puppet mastery and several popular puppet masters.

Enthus includes in his performances such famous television characters as Teletubbies or the Black Steel Hero.

"I have included the Teletubbies and other popular TV characters to persuade children to enjoy shadow puppet shows. I hope that, in this way, shadow puppet shows will not be eclipsed by western arts, which are often more interesting," said Enthus.

Enthus insists that he has deviated from the shadow puppet pakem. He argues that the additional imaginary characters he includes in his performances do not disturb the narrative or the performance on a whole.

"These characters will appear only in mock battles, in which ghosts or ogres, which are imaginary, too, will turn up."

It is his "eccentricity" that makes him popular. The public accept his presence and his performances always pack the venue. He receives four to 15 requests for performances a month for about Rp 25 million each.

He also attempts to respond to the public by continuing to develop his shadow puppets, either the leather or wooden ones. Some 100 leather and wooden puppets of his own creation have just been put on display at the Surakarta Indonesian Institute of Arts (STSI).

Although his puppets still resemble the original characters in terms of type and shape, their sizes are bigger and the color is suited to the need of the performance.

To enrich his knowledge and maturity, Enthus is learning from some puppet master figures, such as Ki Manteb Sudarsono, about sabet (techniques in making battle scenes) and dialog, and also from puppet masters and lecturers on shadow puppet shows at STSI Surakarta, Bambang Suwarno, about the types of shadow puppets.

To enhance his skills, he has also taken lessons from several wooden puppet masters in West Java, such as Asep Sunandar Sunarya, a Sundanese wooden puppet master.

Enthus became a puppet master after his father, who was also one, died in 1983. His father, Sumaryo Diharjo, was a leather and cepak wooden puppet master. Cepak wooden puppet shows are unique to the northern coastal area of Java with stories about Amir Hamzah or the propagation of Islam in Java.

"As I had accompanied my father during his performances in various places, logically his fans wanted me to replace him and I couldn't refuse. That was how I was compelled to learn how to perform a shadow puppet show," said Enthus, adding that at the time he had just turned 18 and completed high school.

Slowly but surely he began to make a name for himself. As he did not think he was good enough, he limited the frequency of his shows and spent a lot of time learning from famous puppet masters.

Enthus was a fast learner. Between late 1989 and early 1990 he performed shadow puppet shows for six full months on a very tight schedule. In three days, he had performed twice and traveled to other regencies.

After winning widespread recognition, Enthus began to experiment in his shows and offered fresh ideas in puppet mastery. Among other things, he included fictional characters, such as the Black Steel Hero, Batman and many others in between the scenes of shadow puppet shows.

He featured established shadow puppet characters, such as Gatotkaca in a flying position or ogre Dasamuka twice the original size. Since the public did not object to this innovation he continued with his experiments.

He is talented as a puppet master and has long hair and an unconventional appearance.

His good voice and mastery of dialogs, which feature different characters' voices, as well as his excellent ability to perform sabet and his mastery of gamelan music compositions have enabled him in a relatively short time to be on equal ground with his seniors, such as Ki Anom Suroto and Ki Manteb Sudarsono of the Surakarta style, Ki Hadi Sugito of Yogyakarta and Asep Sunandar Sunarya, who is a Sundanese wooden puppet master.

However, Enthus is not completely free from accounting for his ethics in what he has experimented with as a puppet master. His good knowledge of religious teachings has lent weight to his performances, because the word dalang (puppet master) can be construed as an acronym originating from two words ngudhal piwulang, or propagating virtues. Unfortunately, in his performances he often uses obscene or suggestive phrases.

His critics, such as Murtidjono, the head of the Central Java Cultural Park, said his use of obscenities could put his career at risk.

"As he uses swear words too much, this will harm him and the art of puppet mastery," Murtidjono said.

Enthus lives with his second wife, Nurlaela, and they are awaiting their fourth child. Enthus lives and runs his Satia Lara workshop out of Bengle village in the Talang district of Tegal regency, which employs some 50 singers of traditional Javanese songs and gamelan players.

The troupe is ready to travel to various cities in Indonesia to accompany his shadow puppet shows. He has a bus, truck and car ready to take the troupe anywhere they are needed. Two sets of leather puppets and wooden puppets plus two sets of gamelans are ready to accompany him wherever he performs.