Moral values in sexuality separated from reality?

Asip A. Hasani, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

Clad in a feminine dress, a young man cries as he walks around his mother's dead body.

"Who forced me to be born in this world?" he yelled. "Mother, let me be back into your womb or take me back to my youth... forgive me mother, I grew up to be someone you did not expect me to be," he shouted before taking his mother's bra off from inside her dress and donning it himself.

Suddenly, a man's voice called him, "Mbak (Sister)!". The young man responded to the voice by performing an erotic dance to the accompaniment of traditional percussion kendang. His energetic dance showed how he cried in his heart although trying to keep on moving while holding a whip in his right hand and a Javanese weapon, the kris, in his left hand.

The scene marked the climax of a drama titled Thekmu Thukno Thekku staged by Teater Gardanalla theater group at the auditorium of Yogyakarta's Indonesia-French Institute (LIP) on Friday and Saturday last week. The words Thekmu Thokno Thekku are a Javanese euphemism, meaning a request for sexual intercourse.

During the performance, with minimal lighting effects, young painter Edo Pillu was painting on a wide canvas, creating a unique background of the stage.

Watching the play might incite laughter just like when the audience was witnessing actor Joned Suryatmoko, who is also the play's director, dancing in female-like movements.

But at the same time, one could also catch the strong message. In the climax, the young man was not simply dancing in erotic movements, but the audience could also witness his grief and anger through his angry expression or watching him dancing with tears in his eyes.

The play, according to Joned, portrayed the protest of transvestites and gays against the prevailing social norms and moral values that in reality alienate them because of their sexual behavior and denounce them as the poison of people.

The play's story tells of an anonymous young gay man who was born to parents who had an unhappy marriage. His parents were the victims of his grandparents' ambition, as they forced them to get married. His father, who was always with other women, never loved his mother.

The young man witnessed all the sorrowful experiences that his mother endured, growing up without a father whom he could consider as a role model to help him shape his masculine side. He only knew his mother, who lived her unhappy life.

"I never chose to be like this... I will kill my father if that's the only way to bury my past," he shouted in tears while raising the kris in his left hand, expressing a mixed feeling of his deep longing for his father and hatred against him at the same time.

The play's dance, which took the better part of an hour, had strong influences from contemporary Japanese Butoh dances.

Scenes of sexual intercourse, both homosexual and heterosexual ones, were done in a straight manner, yet no sense of pornography was seen.

In general, the play's stage layout and the dance's choreography seemed to require another touch to make them sweeter.

The play's climax could works well to send the strongest message, showing deep empathy for the play's director-script writer Joned Suryatmoko as well as other players who are mostly university students from various universities in Yogyakarta.

The actors' young age may correlate to the content of the play, and they might also represent the young generation who probably can no longer accept the present norm and traditional moral values.

"In Yogyakarta alone, there some 300 transvestites, 200 gays, and hundreds of prostitutes. This is our social reality," Joned said in an interview.

Through the play, Joned wants to raise the question in the public forum, "What if moral values in sexuality are separated from reality?"

Teater Gardanella is scheduled to stage Thekmu Thokno Thekku at Teater Utan Kayu in East Jakarta on May 17 and 18; in Surakarta's Cultural Center in Surakarta, Central Java on May 22; Soka Gallery in Denpasar, Bali on May 30 and on May 31 at the Art Center Denpasar; and again at LIP in Yogyakarta on June 12.