Miss Tjitjih's theater strives on
Miss Tjitjih's theater strives on
By Johannes Simbolon
JAKARTA (JP): The lamps in the 200-capacity hall were turned off. The play would soon begin. The red curtain covering the eight-meter-wide stage slowly opened to reveal the living room of a bygone king.
Close to the ceiling, on the upper part of the stage's facade hung a wooden notice reading "Miss Tjitjih".
It was the name which made the theater group a legend.
Miss Tjitjih died long time ago, but the folk theater her husband founded still exists. Unfortunately it is in throes of death, deserted by its fans, like many other folk theaters across the country.
"Sometimes the audience is only five people. If that happens the show is canceled," said Wilyam Sundariah, chief of performing affairs of the theater.
On the night The Jakarta Post visited, the show drew a crowd of around 30 people, slightly above the average of 20.
All the spectators, including the Post, came on invitation of an eccentric woman, Very Hardjono, a securities agency' worker, who celebrated her birthday at the theater in order that her friends develop an appreciation of the group. Attendance was a far cry from expected as she invited at least 200 people.
Only a few of the guests could follow the play because it was presented in the Sundanese language. Many left before it finished.
Jakarta has painfully changed. Decades ago the group's name was on everybody's lips, and their performances drew hundreds of people every night. Now just a memory of its heyday colors the dreams of the group's members.
Miss Tjitjih was first a Valencia opera before it changed into a Sundanese theater in 1928. The name was taken from the name of its prima donna, a Sundanese, who married the group's founder Sayid Abubakar Bafaqih. Miss Tjitjih died in 1936, but her name was retained as the group's title.
They performed at place after place which led to their fame throughout West Java before the Japanese occupied Indonesia in 1942. The Japanese were impressed with the group's popularity and used them to disseminate their "Greater Asia" propaganda. In reward, the group received lots of facilities from them.
In the 1950s, after the revolution, the group initially tried their luck in Jakarta and set up a base in Princent Park (now Lokasari), then moved to Jl. Kramat Raya, from where they reached the peak of their success.
Hundreds came to see them every night. They even received the prestigious Wijayakusuma award from President Sukarno.
Their glory started to wane in the 1970s following the death of Abubakar Bafaqih. The group's auditorium on Jl. Kramat Raya was sold during a dispute among Abubakar Bafaqih's descendants over his wealth.
After that the group, led by his son Harun Bafaqih, went downhill, moving from one place after another, winding up in the Angke district, near the railway station and brothels. The audience numbers dwindled.
In 1987, the city administration built them an auditorium and a dormitory on 5,400 meters of land on Jl. Kabel Pendek, Cempaka Putih, Central Jakarta, and allocated them an annual subsidy of Rp 30 million. The management of the group was transferred from Harun to the newly-founded Miss Tjitjih foundation.
Unfortunately, the location lies in an area where few, if any, Sundanese live.
"The audience comes from such distant places like Krawang. Sometimes they come in a big group by bus," said Wilyam.
About 120 people from 27 families now live in the dormitory, each family squeezing into a three by four meter room. Every night, except for Friday night, the adults, sometimes together with several children, play their roles in performances.
Throughout the day the children are at school, while the adults work at their side jobs in various parts of the city. The income from the stage is too small.
Despite their financial difficulties, the group's members still view their profession with pride.
"This is my life. I'm proud to be involved in preserving one of our cultural heritages," said Eko, 40, director of the group's performances, who moonlights as a billboard painter.
They also take pride in the fact that several stories originating from the theater have been adapted into motion pictures, like Beranak Dalam Kubur (Childbearing in Tomb) and Si Manis Jembatan Ancol (Pretty Girl from Ancol Bridge).
Yet pride is not the only thing that keeps the group's members together. There is also a sense of belonging deeply planted in the heart of the people. This feeling is felt by Eko, who was born into the group and reared by it. After graduating from a technical high school in Bandung, he did not try to find a job outside the theater as he felt the theater needed new talent to preserve it. Eko happened to be the most talented of all the theater's younger generation and was later elected to be the new director of plays.
Some of the group's youngsters are not very talented in acting and already have good jobs outside the theater. Still, they contribute as much as they can to the group.
"I can't leave this group. I was born here. I am a child of this theater," said Gatot, 24, a university graduate, who has an accounting job with an airline company in Central Jakarta.
At night, he works as a ticket boy at the theater.