Teater Garasi's 'Rain' not dry for ideas

Text and photo by Lauren Bain

JAKARTA (JP): When Yogyakarta-based Teater Garasi performed its latest work Reportoar Hujan (literally "rain repertoire") in Surakarta recently it seemed fitting that many of the audience, this reviewer included, were caught in the rain.

Reportoar Hujan, which will be performed in Jakarta on Tuesday, was developed over a period of more than six months, and took as its starting point an unfinished poem by director Gunawan Maryanto. The poem contained two key images -- a man being caught in the rain, and a woman who waters her flowers in the afternoon. These images became the basis of an exploration and creation of a new kind of visual poetry in performance, a poetry based on physicality and the dynamic between bodies in space.

Reportoar Hujan is a departure from Teater Garasi's previous work, in that it uses a movement-based form of theater and no text in developing it. Members of the group undertook training in a range of performance forms including classical Javanese dance, martial arts and butoh (a form of Japanese theater). Reportoar Hujan is more concerned with image and symbol than with telling a story; and it utilizes a simple (but not simplistic) design and minimal performance space.

The collaboration between the performers and musicians (who perform live with the show) results in a tight "soundtrack" which becomes an essential part of the performance.

Reportoar Hujan is both very personal and universal. It does not pretend to deal with "the big issues", and according to director Maryanto, this is a deliberate strategy. But in dealing with "small things" -- being caught in the rain and watering flowers in the afternoon -- the work remains open to multiple interpretations.

It could be read as a comment on power relations between individuals, gender relations, or the importance of contemplation. The decision not to use text in this piece could also be a reflection of the alienation that some young Indonesians feel from language, in an era when words are perhaps increasingly void of meaning.

Because of its style, Reportoar Hujan is perhaps less accessible than more conventional theater, but this is precisely what makes it interesting.

The use of physical theater and a nonlinear, nonnarrative form is, however, not new in Indonesian theater. In the late 1960s Rendra experimented with a form which was later named teater mini-kata (although this term is difficult to translate perhaps literally it means "theater of minimal words"), and the 1980s and 1990s saw a resurgence in physical theater led by Jakarta-based groups Teater SAE and Teater Kubur.

Undoubtedly, many will be reminded of Teater SAE when they see Reportoar Hujan. However for Teater Garasi, one of the leading younger-generation theater groups in Indonesia, this work does represent something "new", and for a group without a clearly definable style (not that this is necessarily a bad thing) it is an important and successful experiment.

Performing Reportoar Hujan on Tuesday in the performance space of The Japan Foundation's Jl. Sudirman office will present new challenges for Teater Garasi. As the performers warmed up for their show in a Surakarta pendopo (open terrace), audience members could look out beyond their umbrellas, see the lightning break over rice fields and smell the rain on rich soil. Not likely in Jakarta.

But enough of the romanticized picture of rural Java in the rain -- the Japan Foundation space will present Teater Garasi with new opportunities for experimentation and thus enable new dimensions to emerge in this work.

Teater Garasi will perform Reportoar Hujan in Jakarta at The Japan Foundation on April 17 at 8 p.m., in Bandung at Selasar Sunaryo on April 18, before returning to Yogyakarta to present the work at Lembaga Indonesia Perancis on April 20 and April 21. Inquiries at 0818 261402.

The writer is an Australian theater worker currently undertaking research for a doctorate on Indonesian theater.