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

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.