Putu Wijaya's 'Ngeh' depicts terror, bravery and cowardice

By Oei Eng Goan

JAKARTA (JP): Like cubist Pablo Picasso who innovated his own painting style after mastering conventional painting techniques, playwright Putu Wijaya is innovating his theatrical performances while adopting the genre of theater of the absurd.

Putu's Ngeh is a living example of his absurdist trend, emphasizing intellectual seriousness and the human condition as well as the incoherence of characters and actions. Like Bor, which he presented in 1995, Ngeh reveals human behavior and feelings not with verbal expressions, but through a combination of jigging, jerking and graceful movements of actors and dancers who cast their shadows on the large backdrop of the stage.

Although the 75-minute drama has no plot and the characters have no names, Ngeh still captivated the large audience, prodding them into pondering how human beings could become heinous brutes in the absence of moral and religious faith in a world dominated by absolute power.

Ngeh -- one of Indonesia's contributions to the Art Summit Indonesia 1998, a month-long international festival on contemporary performing arts to end on Oct. 19 -- delineated human bravery and cowardice in maintaining their existence. While the courageous valiantly sacrifice their lives for the cause for freedom and justice, the cowardly unhesitatingly betray their friends by throwing them into the mouths of hungry monsters.

Putu hit the mark in evoking the audience's admiration of his artistic creation. The dance drama depicted events that have taken place in Indonesia in the past few months, chaotic happenings which traumatized most of the Indonesian public prior to the downfall of the authoritarian ruler.

It showed the gang rape that befell a woman and the killing of innocent people fighting for justice. All this obviously reflects Putu's aversion to the three days of rioting in May, when the capital was beset by lawlessness and fear that stunned not only the Indonesian community, but also the outside world.

Produced by Teater Mandiri and directed by the multitalented Putu, who is also a novelist and film director, the success of the two-day performance should also be credited to musician Harry Roesly and artistic and stage designer Rujito.

The stage backdrop was utilized to the maximum in that it functioned as a screen where silhouettes of the players and the simple props were contrasted sharply. With the help of the lighting effects, it functioned as decor as well in that it appeared as a turbulent world and roaring waves when flapped by the players, thereby creating an impression of depth and direction.

Harry's musical pieces served to dramatize the performance by demonstrating his skill in imitating various sounds -- from a howling wolf to clear rippling of water, the cracking of gunshots and thunderous beat of drums evincing violence.

The sound and lighting effects truly supported the feeling of fear that Putu -- who believes that mental terror is the shock therapy of human passiveness and a driving force for theatrical innovation -- wanted to impress on the audience.

The theme of Ngeh resembles William Butler Yeats' poem, The Second Coming, when "in the widening gyre the falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold (and) mere anarchy is loosed upon the world".

Despite the gloomy situation in Indonesia, a country hardest hit by the economic crisis in the region, Putu encouraged the audience to always love and safeguard the nation against anarchy. It was a sentiment evidently reflected in the song Don't Cry Indonesia at the end of the performance.