Women portrayed as weak in Teater Garasi's 'Sri'

By Ahmad Solikhan

YOGYAKARTA (JP): The Goddess Sri, personified with a bunch of ripe rice stalks, represents hope for prosperity for many rural Javanese farmers. Many Javanese have adopted the Goddess' name for themselves to symbolize their hope for happiness and prosperity.

But obviously, not all people named Sri can harvest happiness.

A play performed by Teater Garasi in Yogyakarta, on June 27 and June 28, at Soietet Militer Hall, tells the tragic story of the charming and beautiful Sri. She is a village girl who's simple desires, and the oppressive values of the community, lead her to do a terrible thing.

The show, part of Yogyakarta Art Festival XI, was directed by Gunawan Cindhil Maryanto, and will be held again on July 1 and July 2 at Taman Budaya in Surakarta.

Like other women in her village, Sri spends most of her life at home helping her parents at the kitchen and in the paddy fields. In Javanese culture, so the saying goes, wanita (woman) is short for wani ditata lan konco wingking, which means "willing to be ordered around and be a 'backseat friend'".

Sri, along with the other girls in her neighborhood, walks along the farm dikes carrying lunch for her toiling parents. Then the girls would go home and do the laundry at the river, gossiping about the boys they admire.

Men plow in the farm and herd cows. They only go home at dusk. Country men never stay idle. There is always something to do. There is none of the so-called "unemployment" in the villages.

Sri had a steady relationship with Bondan, her neighbor. But the love affair was crushed when her parents decided to match her with Damar, an elementary school teacher. So Sri can do nothing but accept what her parents have decided for her, although she does not love Damar.

Sri tried very hard to forget Bondan and learn to love Damar, her husband. When her love for Damar started to grow, she despaired to find that there was no sign that she would have a baby.

The failure to produce an offspring has stirred every family spat. Sri's disappointment got worse whenever she saw her friends cradling their babies. Her frustration was pushed to the limit when an elderly woman offered her a man that she guaranteed could give her a baby.

"I still have my dignity. And I don't need a seed from someone else, although I am dying for a child," Sri retorted, pointing a finger at the elderly woman. "I want a child from my husband."

Sri could not bear the loneliness at home while her husband was on the farm. So every time he went away, she went to visit her neighbors.

She soon found her first love budding again. Each day at dusk she would go to the end of the alley to see Bondan coming back from the farm with his cow.

Her neighbors began to spread rumors that she had again become intimate with her ex-boyfriend. Damar rarely found his wife in the house when he returned home from the farm, and he, too, began to suspect she was having an affair.

Tension in the family, triggered by the absence of a baby, became worse. Sri accused Damar of being unable to give her a baby, and Damar accused her of having an affair with Bondan.

The family rift ended with Sri hacking Damar to death. "I am now free from suffering," she sighed in relief. "Now rises a new spirit and hope for a baby."

Bondan had gone to a town far away from home and was not coming back. The disoriented Sri retreated to Pesanggrahan Mountain, where she prayed for a baby.

She burned incense while praying in the dark. There were spirits roaming around, and they possessed her. She could not accept that remaining childless was the divine will, and she rejected this by murdering her husband.

The play is adapted from Yerma, a story created by F. Garcia Lorca.

Performed by nine men and women, the play uses simple storyline and language. The actors performed very well. Very Handayani, who played the elderly woman, was particularly excellent. Erythrina, who played Sri, has not yet sharpened her acting skills to play more naturally.

But observers agreed that Teater Garasi showed a great deal of improvement in the play.

The simple storyline portrays women as weak creatures who have to resort to violence to show their determination.