Tragicomedy 'Gerr' enlivens Schouwburg II Festival 1996
By Oei Eng Goan
JAKARTA (JP): Participating in a nine-day art event called the Schouwburg Festival II 1996, playwright Putu Wijaya's group, Teater Mandiri, staged Gerr, a tragicomedy on the death and resurrection of the protagonist and snobbery in his family.
The play, which Putu himself wrote and directed, was first performed here in 1982. Three years later, Gerr was also staged in Madison, Wisconsin, U.S., under the title Geez. According to the dramatist, it was "readily accepted by the American audience" despite the absurdist storyline.
The theme of the play remains relevant, concerning as it does an individual's struggle for freedom against the desires of corrupt people in a world where material wealth and powerful position hide a thousand flaws.
Gerr, whose two-day run at Jakarta's prestigious Gedung Kesenian ended last night, lambasts the futility of human existence in pure "Theater of the Absurd" style.
The story opens with the dead Bima (played by Budi Setiawan) inside a coffin. His beautiful wife (Silvana Herman), his children, and his parents wail and look bereft, protesting the cruel fate that has befallen them and praising the good deeds the deceased performed during his lifetime.
One of Bima's sons insists that the coffin be reopened so that he can recite a poem expressing his sorrow and love to Bima so that the deceased may know of their grief and then rest in peace.
To everyone's surprise, Bima comes back to life, and far from being joyous at seeing him alive, they are frightened and run away.
Shocked as they are, more shocked still is Bima when he realizes the falsity of life and the true colors of his wife, children and grandmother (played by Sri Hardini). All those who claimed to be grief-stricken earlier now turn against him. They beat him and want to see him dead rather than alive, for his loving wife plans to marry a much more handsome man, his parents have sold his belongings and withdrawn his money "to pay for his funeral".
The only persons who still care for the desolate Bima are the two gravediggers (Wendy Nasution and Eddy Panthat), who are despised by the community as "creepy animals". On the gravediggers' suggestion, Bima puts on new clothes and assumes a new name to lead a new life.
In Gerr, which literally means roar of laughter, Putu has succeeded in depicting human anguish with techniques commonly used for comedy, thereby letting the audience easily digest the difficult theme of the play while enjoying it as an entertaining performance.
Yet this performance of Gerr lacked the sustained depth and bite of Putu's other works such as Bor, which was presented at TIM's Teater Arena last December.
The acting of some of the actors needed some work, to truly add soul to their characters and play them with the spirit needed in an absurdist tragicomedy full of improbable situations and funny dialogue. Props and makeup cannot disguise the weaknesses in the acting.
Still, the players efforts were not totally futile. At least they were willing to help develop the country's performing arts. And "good intentions", so goes the Festival's catch phrase, "even with shortcomings, should still be praised."