Marsinah monolog is a spirit's search for justice
JAKARTA (JP): It was a lonely and desolate night, the stillness broken only by the strong smell of burning incense wafting in the darkness and the faint chirps of crickets.
An apt setting as the embittered spirit of a labor activist was about to have her protest voiced from the underworld.
Outside the theater building at Taman Ismail Marzuki, Central Jakarta, four trucks of security men stood guard.
The spirit's vicarious "medium" was Tuesday's play, Marsinah Menggugat (Marsinah Objects), written, directed and performed by Ratna Sarumpaet, who leads the Satu Merah Panggung theater group.
A few hours before the opening, police warned Ratna to "control" herself. "How can a spirit be controlled?" she teased them.
Against a backdrop of black cloth, with a heap of red soil under a wooden plank on which Ratna lay at center stage, was the setting of the one-hour monolog.
The play was based on the widely publicized real life tragedy of Marsinah, a worker of a watch manufacturer, PT Catur Putra Surya in Sidoardjo, East Java. She was murdered and her body mutilated after leading a strike for better pay and working conditions four years ago.
Police declared the case closed in September after their last lead, a DNA test, failed because the blood sample had been contaminated.
For Satu Merah Panggung the outcome was clear -- there was no way Marsinah's spirit can rest in peace, regardless of her posthumous awards, including the workers' hero award from the All-Indonesia Workers Union.
"Why can't they (the police) find the suspect(s)?" Ratna asks in character. "Contamination, what contamination?"
The spirit had to speak again, following Merah Panggung's repeated performances since 1994 of their first play on the tragedy, Marsinah, Nyanyian dari Bawah Tanah (Marsinah, Song from the Underworld).
"It's impossible my spirit can leave my body on its own without any reasons, or without anyone taking it away from me," the spirit said angrily.
As the play continues, the "spirit" shows she is still watching the doings of the living.
"I know who really burned the forest and caused the haze," said the spirit, wrapped in white cloth.
She peers through a pair of small binoculars, spots a "legislator" in the audience, and taunts him.
"Is the inability to fight for people's interest the result of your latest crash course?" she says, referring to the recent preliminary course, the first of its kind, for the new representatives.
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An hour-long monolog of a predictable plot peppered with expected criticism may have discouraged some from attending. But Ratna wove her theatrical spell throughout, provoking viewers to contemplate what a troubled spirit must be going through.
One thing Marsinah's spirit does not do is read the papers, "because newspapers only publish what they're allowed to, not what they should".
The humble daughter of a checking.... through Ratna, then recounts the details of her torture. She added sadly: "Why was I killed in such a merciless manner while I was just trying to improve my life?"
Ratna has thoroughly immersed herself in Marsinah's character through meeting family, friends, colleagues and journalists who covered her case.
After expelling her barrage of criticism, the spirit weakens -- she realizes she has turned to dust and is powerless to search for justice or change her destiny.
The play was inevitably a collective memory of this previously unknown young woman, whose sole image was based on a photograph of her attending a friend's wedding. Tears flowed among members of the audience.
Marsinah's relatives and former coworkers, fired after their strike, were present, as well as familiar human rights figure HJC Princen, paranormal Permadi and Mrs. Rahmi Hatta, wife of the late first vice president, Mohammad Hatta.
The play's message was simple and clear.
"We shouldn't stop now," Ratna declared.
Many people "have difficulty with the system," she said. When cases are closed, no one will dare to protest and people gradually forget.
"We can't let it happen because it is about humanity and the country's dignity," Ratna said.
"It's like planting -- we won't feel satisfied unless we see the flower bloom ourselves," she said after the play.
The text of the first play is now available in book form, which Ratna presented to each of Marsinah's 10 coworkers and relatives following the performance.
After Jakarta, the monolog is scheduled to play in Java and Sumatra -- Bandung, Jember, Lampung, Padang, Semarang, Solo, Surabaya, Tasikmalaya, Tegal and Yogyakarta, starting Nov. 13.
As Ratna said earlier, the expected sight of security people outside, and maybe inside, the theaters would only serve to deepen Merah Panggung's involvement with the character of the 23- year-old woman, who died fighting for what she believed was right. (ste)