Revival in works for traditional 'wayang'
Revival in works for traditional 'wayang'
By Sirikit Syah
SURABAYA (JP): Talib Prasojo's hands skillfully arranged the dried grass and rice stalks into a wayang (puppet). Only one week after the Javanese Puppets exhibition and workshop opened at Majapahit Mandarin Hotel in Surabaya, he had sold a dozen straw puppets.
Hopefully, they are only the first of many -- the exhibition runs through April 3.
"Somebody has ordered more puppets. I will make them at home," he told The Jakarta Post. One of his simpler puppets sells for Rp 20,000.
Puppet-making, and the smells associated with the materials, bring back memories of his childhood.
"In the village, we used to make this kind of puppet while tending the ricefield or the cattle. Of course, in those days we had no choice. We had to be creative, using everything we had as toys."
He pursued a career as a painter but he never forgot his love of puppets. One set of his straw puppets is in the collection of the Empu Tantular Museum. "It lasts well. I made it in 1990 and it still looks good now." He said he sprayed the puppets with melamine for durability.
He is happy because not only Westerners, who make up most of the guests at Majapahit hotel, are interested in his puppets. Many Indonesians looked curious and asked a lot of questions. One of them asked how he differentiated between each character since he did not use color. In fact, that is the most difficult part; the puppets have similar shapes and forms.
"But you can see the difference from the decorations and accessories I put on them. Look at the heads, their hairdos." He said straw puppet characters were limited and not as diverse as leather puppets.
He does not apply color because he tried it once, and it yielded unsatisfactory results. The natural color of the dried grass and straw is the best and is what makes them unique, he said. He said people could use the puppets in a play, "not for a complete, long program, but it is good for an opening. Five minutes to 10 minutes before the real leather puppets will do".
Prasojo also suggested that his wayang were suitable for contemporary puppet theater like wayang kentrung, with plots based on modern sociopolitical situations. "In contemporary wayang theater, characters are not standard. They vary widely."
One 'dalang' left
A disappearing type of puppet theater is wayang beber, which is played out against a wide white screen painted with wayang characters in a complete story. Basuki, a government official from the provincial office of the education and culture ministry, is believed to be the only person who still produces wayang beber, but he does not perform.
"There is only one man who performs wayang beber. He lives in Pacitan, where the wayang come from," explained Basuki. No one had learned or showed interest in playing wayang beber, including the sons of the only dalang (puppet master). The original wayang beber, which is kept at the man's house, was a gift from the Majapahit kingdom after a medicine man from Pacitan cured the king's daughter.
Basuki told the government he wanted to buy it, but the owner refused to sell. Even to use it, he had to undergo a ritual ceremony. "It is considered sacred," explained Basuki. The original set consisted of four screens, used one by one in a performance, as the dalang told the story. It is like narrative art, with traditional music.
Wayang beber is now reproduced, mainly by Basuki and his troupe. It is rarely performed, perhaps only occasionally in Pacitan, the small town straddling the south and west of East Java, on the border of Central Java and near the Indonesian Ocean. In Surabaya and other cities, wayang beber are only exhibited as a kind of painting form, not as a performing art.
Basuki makes wayang beber in his spare time. A small screen takes three days to finish; a bigger one, 2.7 meters by 0.5 meters, requires one month. "I display my art in Yogyakarta, in a small shop tended by my son. It sells fine."
Wayang kulit artist Rahardjo was also happy to be part of the exhibition in the hotel because "usually we get orders from visitors after this kind of program". During workshops and exhibitions in other places, he gained a number of short and long-term customers. With a friend, he carves cow leather into wayang kulit. One puppet is priced at about Rp 200,000, while a wall decoration with frame costs Rp 450,000.
Open House
Majapahit Mandarin Hotel feels it has the responsibility to share its facilities with the local community.
"This is a heroic and historical monument. People should be allowed to come and feel the atmosphere," said Bradford Zak, general manager of the hotel. The hotel was known as Hotel Oranye in the Dutch colonial period and as Hotel Merdeka during the war of independence. The replacing of the tri-colored Dutch flag with the red-and-white Indonesian flag, which was captured in photographs, was a monumental moment in the Indonesian struggle for independence.
Since 1998, the hotel has had a full-time cultural concierge, whose function it is to arrange and plan cultural activities in the hotel to be enjoyed by the local community.
"It is a kind of open house program. We are open for everybody," said Zak. At the end of the wayang festival on April 3, there will be a shadow puppet performance in the north garden open to the public at no charge.
For three weeks, visitors to Majapahit have been able to enjoy many types of wayang in the hotel lobby, including types they may never have encountered before. They are wayang beber, wayang golek (wooden puppets), wayang kulit, wayang suket (grass/straw puppets), wayang tengul (wooden puppets, specifically from Bojonegoro) and wayang timplong (flat wooden puppets). Some of the puppets are from private collections and museums, while others are for sale.