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.