Street kids triumph on opening night

By Chris Brummitt

JAKARTA (JP): The rain outside the Jakarta Arts Center after last month's performance by the David Glass Ensemble of Hansel and Gretel Machine fell as a reminder to those leaving that life had been going on outside the theater. That they needed reminding was because ten minutes earlier they had been taken back to a world of long submerged childhood memories and feelings, loosely strung along the fairy tale of the title.

It was a powerful piece of physical theater. With no dialog, the wealth of visual images and scenes -- disturbing, emotional and humorous -- backed up with a beautiful musical score and innovative use of props, were allowed free reign in the audience's imagination.

The story, concerning two children's rejection, abandonment and survival, was especially relevant and poignant due to the presence in the audience of groups of street children.

These children, who at times became as enthralled as the rest of the audience, had been invited by the ensemble to witness the show as one of the first stages in what would culminate in their own theatrical performance.

Watching the show and listening to the children's responses, it was intriguing to think what they would come up with. On Saturday night, a sold-out Jakarta Arts Center found out, when the Children of Jakarta performed their first work, The Story of The Lost Children.

This was never going to be an ordinary night at the theater. Phillip Glass, the man behind the project, explained that the work was based as much as possible on the children's input. His ensemble, along with six performance artists from the Jakarta Arts Institute (IKJ) and four University of Indonesia students, dubbing themselves "facilitators," had worked for only five days with the children.

Thanks to the various non-governmental organizations which shepherded their children to and from rehearsals, upwards of 50 street children were allowed to tell their story.

The sun rose over a kampong and the children acted out bath- time rituals and agricultural duties. In classic fairy tale fashion order was thus established, if only to be quickly torn apart. Two children's parents were ghosted away in the night, leaving them defenseless in the woods, which at times both protected them and threatened them. The trees were cut down (the performance of one the smallest children wielding an oversized cardboard chainsaw deserves a special mention here) and the children awoke to find themselves towered over by huge skyscrapers that moved menacingly about the stage.

It was here in the city that the performance came in to its own. To a reggae/calypso soundtrack, driven by the drumming of two dreadlocked boys, the children showed an eclectic audience mix a snapshot of life as it is for them. Buses and cars careered across the stage, they were caught in the middle of a schoolchildren's fight and falsely accused of stealing a shopper's bag in the market. Businessmen walked around with mobile phones stuck to their ears, a caricature which culminated quite brilliantly in a tightly choreographed dance scene.

The children then set about interviewing each other as part of a television show. The subject? The life of street children in Jakarta. If this conceit was not enough, thanks to some technological wizardry it was aired live behind them on a huge TV screen. The child enjoying the cameo role of the interviewer captured the formality of a TV anchorman's language perfectly.

Order was restored when the children rescued the two runaways from being swallowed by a huge mouth that appeared on the screen. Fittingly for a performance that aimed to give these children a voice, after a celebratory closing song, the stage was given over to them for a question and answer session. High on postperformance adrenalin, their answers proved to be funny, informative and moving.

Their euphoria was evident; that of the audience less so, as they were aware that their journey home would take them past hundreds of other children spending their night selling cigarettes or panhandling on the city's streets.

The smiling children at TIM (Ismail Marzuki Cultural Center), however, had the last laugh and it was at the audience's expense. Captive, they were treated to one last song, and before they could move from their seats some of the children had descended from the stage and started collecting money, turning the night into a buskers' performance.

Art imitating life? A final trick in a night of surprises? It didn't matter; it was the perfect way to end the performance.

As the children's tins began filling up with notes, this reviewer began to understand a little more what David Glass had meant when he said last week that his theater was about the heart.

This week the Ensemble have been working in Yogyakarta and Bandung. They will assist in similar collaborations at the Fort of Vrederburg, Jogyakarta, and the Bandung Arts Institute at 7.30 pm on Nov. 13. Tickets are free. For those who need seats, the advice is to get there early.