BY Barbara
Hatley
University of
Tasmania, Australia
blhatley@postoffice.newnham.utas.edu.au
 |
| Ketoprak di Jawa (www.antaranews.com) |
This paper arises
out of 25 years of theatre-watching in Indonesia, particularly in the city of
Yogyakarta. Here I studied the popular melodrama ketoprak in the late 1970s, and have continued to observe ketoprak,
modern Indonesian language theatre, teater,
and other varieties of performance ever since. Yogya as the acknowledged
heartland of ketoprak activity in the 1970s, the site of the greatest number of
troupes, was my choice for the initial study. Later explorations of the social
meanings of various forms of theatre for their Javanese-Indonesian participants
have likewise been based mainly in Yogyakarta. But not exclusively so - where
Yogya performance practice compares significantly with developments elsewhere,
or where a wider perspective has been needed to encompass a particular topic,
my gaze has been broader.
Here I will concentrate mainly on the ways in which
Yogya theatre groups engage with globalising, modernising social currents and
theatrical forms, while maintaining a distinctive local identity. At the same
time, the performance approaches and styles of several groups in Solo provide
insights into alternate ways of experiencing and expressing through theatre a
sense of identity as Javanese in contemporary Indonesia. While Yogya theatre
engages directly, at times in a concerted movement, with contemporary social
and political conditions and global cultural trends, Solo performance appears
more heterogeneous and more independent of general trends, fine a local
identity independent of and at times resistant to the tide.
Yogya Ketoprak in the 1970s as a Wong Cilik Art Form
Yogyakarta as I
experienced it in the 1970s had a distinctive identity coloured by its long
history as a court city, and more recent past as the centre of nationalist perjuangan in the Revolution, followed
by the political mobilisation and polarisation of the Sukarno years. The aura
of the kraton, the mystique of its culture and the social influence of the
inhabitants of the aristocratic dalem
was still strong, within the kampung neighbourhoods bearing the names of the
great houses or particular groups of court soldiers, and well beyond. At the
same time, fostered in a general way by the presence of the court, traditional
Javanese arts and cultural traditions - wayang, classical dance, gamelan, tembang singing as well as legends,
histories, sayings and expressions – were ingrained in local life. The perjuangan history lived on strongly in
the memory of older citizens and was recalled yearly in enthusiastic
celebration of tujuhbelasan, 17th
August, independence day. The time of parties and rallies, of stirring
political rhetoric, of a strong and influential leftist movement brutally
decimated as the New Order regime took power in 1965/66, could be spoken of
only guardedly and obliquely. But it formed a significant underlay to everyday
life in the early years of the New Order, even as the practices and ideology of
the new military-controlled, development-oriented state, took hold.
Ketoprak performance
fitted within and gave expression to these formations. In 1977-1978 Yogyakarta
had five ketoprak troupes which performed commercially each night in locations
in and around the city. From time to time they performed appropriately costumed
Middle Eastern (Mesiran) or Chinese
stories, illustrating ketoprak’s open,
inclusive repertoire, and its historical
influence from the hybrid
Malay-Middle Eastern opera Stamboel and
its offshoot forms. Their core body of stories, however, were set in Javanese
royal courts, those of the most recent
Mataram dynasty or the earlier East Javanese kingdoms, Majapahit,
Kediri, Singosari.. In addition to
commercial shows there were also many privately-sponsored, all-night
performances for weddings and circumcisions, which in more remote villages
might attract several thousand viewers. Government bodies sponsored public
performances for state occasions such as Education Day or National Awakening
Day. Meanwhile village and kampung community celebrations for Independence Day
provided the opportunity for a ketoprak performance by myriads of local amateur
groups. The weekly television broadcasts which had commenced a few years
earlier, presenting a new streamlined, compact and scripted version of the
form, were likewise a big focus of attention. In the village where I lived, for
example, on ketoprak nights the front rooms of the two families who owned
television sets were packed with neighbours. But many regarded this filmic
medium as an interesting novelty rather than "real ketoprak". It was
ketoprak on stage, playing out stories of Javanese history and legend through
improvised dialogue and familiar characterisations and scenes, which kampung
people referred to as "our own art form", through which they claimed
to learn their own history and cultural traditions.
The use of
"our" here suggests a sense of commonality with other kampung and
village dwellers - small farmers and
farm labourers, urban workers, street stall owners, becak drivers, the social
group classically defined in Javanese as wong
cilik "little people",
“commoners”. Historically wong cilik constituted the lower end of an aristocrat
/commoner priyayi/ wong cilik divide.
Distinguished by occupation and wealth, priyayi and wong cilik nevertheless shared a common culture. Aristocratic
values and social behaviour formed the model for the wong cilik, and constant
interchange occurred between the artistic practice of court and village.. Yet
over the years the privilege of the
aristocratic/bureaucratic elite intensified through colonial connection: priyayi
families gained access to Dutch schooling and adopted European cultural
pursuits. A sense of fundamental difference solidified between the well-born,
Western-educated, white collar inhabitants of the brick and concrete gedongan houses lining city streets, and
uneducated rural folk as well as the labourers, servants, small shopowners and
tradespeople living in the crowded kampung neighbourhoods between the main
urban thoroughfares. It was this latter group who took up ketoprak acting as a
profession and past-time, and largely people like themselves who gathered to
watch.
When this social
divide became politicised in the 1950’s and 1960’s, as the Communist Party and
associated organisations championed the cause of the underclass, the rakyat, ketoprak unsurprisingly became caught up in such
activity. A former Central Java head of
LEKRA, Lembaga Kebudayaan Rakyat, the
socialist-oriented “Institute of People’s Culture”, reports that the
organisation was concerned to foster the cultural development of the underclass,
to direct attention to cultural
expression which had not received it before, while also promoting
political awareness. He personally had long been angered by the disdainful yet
hypocritical attitude of the social elite towards ketoprak. Publicly dismissing
it as a common, lowly entertainment of
kampung folk, unsuitable for performance in respectable parts of town,
they had to keep their private enjoyment
unacknowledged. As a school boy in the early 1950’s he had ridden by
bike at night through the rich suburbs, past the houses of those who publicly
scorned ketoprak and its practitioners: many radios could be heard tuned to the weekly broadcast of ketoprak on
the state radio station RRI! He wanted to give the form its proper place - Jangan itu dianggap kelas kambing,
dianaktirikan “Don’t let it be regarded as rubbish ( literally “goat
class”), don’t let it be treated as a step child” was his wish. In his position
as advisor to the ketoprak organisation Bakoksi he would provide correction of
historical references, point out anachronisms, advise on costuming and
language, as well as give guidance on the appropriate “message” to be brought
out in a particular lakon.
The pre-eminent
commercial group in Yogya during this period, Krido Mardi, was the home base of
the LEKRA-linked All-Indonesia ketoprak organisation BAKOKSI. Several of its
performers were members of LEKRA and some also of the Communist party, the
PKI. Two actors represented the PKI in
the local parliament. Before the troupe went on tour outside the city, actors
would consult with LEKRA and the communist party about current party policies
as well as local social and cultural conditions in the regions they were about
to visit, so as to be able to create appropriate performances. The stories presented
were generally standard ketoprak repertoire, but presented so as to promote
what was considered a “progressive” perspective. Prominent among these stories
were lakon which depict a princely figure acting in an oppressive way towards
virtuous ordinary folk, such as Ki Ageng
Mangir, in which Senopati, first sultan of Mataram, murders the leader of
the people of Mangir , an independent village area near Yogya, because their independence is seen as a threat to his total control of
the realm. But there were other messages, too, such as the importance of
education, promoted through the Chinese story Sam Pek Eng Tay, where a young girl disguises herself as a boy in
order to be able to attend school.
In the massacres and
imprisonments of members of leftist organisations which followed the army-led
coup attempt of 1965/1966, the
Yogya ketoprak world was hard hit. Many
members of the Krido Mardi group were imprisoned, and several died or
disappeared; other troupes and actors also suffered. All performance activity
ceased for a few years, apart from radio broadcasts. By 1977-1978 when I came
to do research the scene had revived. Commercial and amateur groups were
operating as just described; the memory of the earlier time was necessarily
firmly suppressed. The armed forces and
government agencies now provided some institutional support for ketoprak, and
promoted the dominant ideological values of social stability and economic
development. A new group, Sapta Mandala, had formed in 1971, under the auspices
of the Central Javanese military regiment, with Bagong Kussudiardjo, a
well-known dance choreographer and visual artist of aristocratic descent, as
titular head. Directly in charge of the activities of the troupe, its artistic
leader and spiritual mentor until his death in 1991, was Bagong's younger
brother, the writer and journalist Handung Kussudiarsono. The stated purpose of
the founding of the troupe was to cultivate ketoprak of a high artistic
standard, training actors in such areas as formal Javanese language and court
etiquette, and producing quality performances for the edification as well as
entertainment of the public. In a deliberate attempt to play down ketoprak’s
populist heritage, it was described as an art form for “the whole society”, and
emphasis laid on the need for skilled, sophisticated performances in keeping
with the tastes of the educated middle class. Ironically, a number of the key
performers of the troupe, including the director, a famous clown and the
elderly actor who played the roles of
wise advisor and sage, were former members of Krido Mardi. By undertaking, as an army-connected troupe,
to monitor the activities of the former leftist actors, Sapta Mandala was able
to appropriate their performing skills.
Denied the opportunity to work elsewhere because of their status as
former political prisoners, the actors had no choice.
Yet, although the
pre-1965 past could not be evoked directly, its memory was vivid. Kampung neighbours spoke nostalgically of the
group Krido Mardi and its prima donna, Kadarijah, released during my stay. They
saw Sapta Mandala as something of a pale shadow of its greatness. Occasionally
actors would quietly recount the way certain lakon were performed in the old
days. The former director of Krido Mardi recounted, for example, that in Ki Ageng Mangir, as the title character
made his fateful journey to the kraton of Senopati and to his death, all along the way crowds of admiring local people tried desperately but
vainly to persuade him to turn back. A
prolonged, emotion-laden display of people's solidarity took place. An actor
from a different political camp during that period gave a more critical
account, describing a crudely propagandistic atmosphere as “the people” along Mangir’s route called out the slogans
of the Barisan Tani, the communist-linked
farm labourers’ association. Among the myriad ketoprak performances I
watched in 1977-19978 I saw the lakon Ki
Ageng Mangir performed only
once, by an East Javanese troupe,
despite the intimate connection of the story with the Yogyakarta area and its status a core ketoprak lakon. Its
very centrality to the repertoire of socialist-oriented groups in the past was
presumably a motive for its avoidance in a contrasting political environment.
There was
opportunity nevertheless within less fraught narratives to play upon the
standard conventions of stage representation of character, location and event
so as to make reference to the social
experience and ideological
perspectives of ketoprak’s wong cilik constituency. Ketoprak actors in the
1970s often stated that their performances were about pemerintahan, governance. Their stories from court histories and
depictions of kings, courtiers, heroic fighters and demonic enemies conveyed
inherent reference to affairs of state, which took on a different nuance
according to the sponsoring organisation and the social context. The same lakon
presented for an official state function and at an informal neighbourhood
gathering, for example, could convey different images of kingly power and
relations between lord and underling. A performance by Sapta Mandala in a
stately pendapa to celebrate an
occasion such as National Awakening Day would involve long, serious palace
audiences marked by displays of fine court etiquette and debates of weighty
affairs of state. In a show for a village wedding, by contrast, untried
amateurs would be cast in the roles of king and courtiers, and their stiff,
hesitant interactions largely ignored. Meanwhile the crowd would delight in the
raucous village scenes, amorous love encounters, and the teasing of their
pompous aristocratic master by clown servants, played by famous actors from
Sapta Mandala. The celebration of
Independence Day, 17 Augustus, provided the opportunity for scores of amateur
groups to perform in their local community concert or malam kesenian, in stories of heroic struggle (kepahlawanan) and loyal service of little people to their king and
country. A vital role of Yogya ketoprak
in the 1970s was expression of the cultural concerns and sense of self of its
lower class (wong cilik) Javanese
performers and audiences. My researcher's observations were confirmed by
participant views that ketoprak represented "our own art form", a
medium for learning Javanese history and language.
This sense of
identification did not keep ketoprak performers and fans from involvement in
and enjoyment of other kinds of performance. Wayang kulit was widely watched
and listened to. Ketoprak actors commonly listened to all-night radio
broadcasts of wayang after the show; many ketoprak audience members interviewed
for a survey of performance tastes reported frequently watching wayang, and
vice versa. Some performers had
previously played wayang wong, human
dance drama based on wayang stories; some actresses danced occasionally at tayuban parties and other occasions;
some young people performed in Indonesian language plays at school and enjoyed
pop music. But none of these other forms bore the sense of collective ownership
for village and kampung people associated with ketoprak.
Teater in Yogya in the
70s and 80s–Students, Actors
and NGOs
Meanwhile another
genre of performance was growing in importance as an expression of identity of
a distinct, though somewhat overlapping social group. Modern theatre, teater, formerly a cultivated pursuit of
the highly-educated, derived from European models and heavily reliant on
adaptations of foreign plays, was expanding in popularity as it took on a more
local face.
The developments occurring in modern Indonesian theatre
during the 1970s are well-documented –
the new freedom for experimentation opened up by the establishment of the Taman
Ismail Marzuki Arts Centre in Jakarta; the move away from the Western-derived
model of a linear, text-focussed, realistic play, and the rapprochement with
traditional, regional theatre forms. Elsewhere I have written of the political
reverberations of the evocation of
“tradition” among theatre groups in Central Java, as the conventional
images of Javanese theatre tradition, the characterisations of kings, courtiers and humble subjects, were
satirised and subverted, with critical reference to contemporary powerholders.
As New Order officials drew upon the symbols of Javanese cultural
tradition to strengthen their own kudos and legitimacy, theatre represented
these same “ traditions” as flawed, corrupt, exploitative.
Originator and
dominant figure in this process was the dramatist and poet Rendra, living and
working in Yogya with his group Teater
Bengkel. The chief constituency for Rendra’s performances was the student
population of Yogya and other cities where the group performed. The mid to late
seventies were restive times in university circles, with the demonstrations
over the Malari affair, the student White paper challenging the government and
trials of student leaders, the campus protests and finally military retaliation
and “normalisation” of campus life in
1978. Rendra’s poetry readings and plays fed into and enriched this mood of
political resistance. Huge crowds of young people roared with delight, for
example, at his portrayal of an avariciousness queen, universally interpreted
as President Suharto’s wife, sycophantic government officials and exploitative
foreign powers in the play Kisah
Perjuangan Suku Naga, wayang-like in form but inspired by a contemporary
conflict between local people, government officials and big business in
Kalimantan.
When Rendra was
silenced by a government ban in 1978, the group Dinasti took over the lead
in representing through theatre the consciousness of politicised students and
other young people. They extended the use of idioms and themes from Javanese
theatre and cultural tradition. Their first play, for example, Dinasti Mataram ( The Mataram Dynasty) by Fajar Suharno, is a reworking of the tale
of Ki Ageng Mangir, a famous ketoprak
lakon, mentioned above as a key vehicle for attack on “feudal” elite authority the 1950s and
60s and avoided during the 70s
presumably because of this past history. The Dinasti play at first follows
faithfully the ketoprak version of the story, depicting Senopati as an august
ruler and Ki Ageng Mangir as an egalitarian-minded leader unwittingly deceived
into marrying the daughter of Senopati, Pembayun, disguised as a ledek dancer.
Ki Ageng Mangir is then obliged to travel to the court of Mataram to his father in law; here the
distinctive features of Dinasti
presentation come into play. A long, serious discussion of state
politics takes place between Senopati and Mangir , in which Mangir endorses
Senopati’s aim of unifying and developing the kingdom, but asserts that this
development must be the joint responsibility of all the people of the land as
active participants. The great kings of old whom Senopati cites as his models
all failed in one respect, according to Mangir - they failed to create lasting
institutions by inspiring and training future generations. Such sentiments would have resonated strongly
with the views of young, educated audience members, critical of authoritarian
government structures and top-down development programs. Like other Dinasti
plays of this period Dinasti Mataram
engages seriously, albeit critically, with Javanese “tradition”, in keeping
with the stated aim of the group to open dialogue with the authorities and menyadarkan penguasa “conscientasise the powerholders”.
A specific local
style of modern Indonesian theatre was emerging, giving expression to the
combination of Javanese cultural roots
and modern Indonesian social/political consciousness of educated young people
in Central Java. Critical, satirical representations of dominant, court-centred
Javanese “tradition” arguably resonated with the political dissatisfactions and
desire for greater personal freedom of youthful theatre audiences. At the same
time, in a variant interpretation of Javanese “tradition”, the groups Jeprik
and then Gandrik developed the so-called sampakan
style of performance - simple, humorous, lively, recreating the intimacy of
folk theatre. Gandrik performances in the later 80s attracted a large
following, consisting of people from a wider social spectrum than the usual
audiences for modern theatre performances. Live performances drew mixed middle
class crowds, including professionals, traders, housewives and their families
along with the expected students, intellectuals and journalists; tv broadcasts
of their plays brought in more ordinary folk. Performances which playfully
mixed together Javanese and Indonesian language, juxtaposing snippets of
wayang-style dialogue and movement with contemporary bureaucratic speak,
recalled the inter-linguistic, intercultural joking which occurs in everyday
modern Javanese life. Audience members, themselves operating constantly in the
intersection between Indonesian and Javanese language and social practice,
presumably enjoyed a sense of recognition of their worlds. Rather than
problematising Java-in-Indonesia through combative interpretations of Javanese
history and contemporary Indonesian politics,
Gandrik parodied and satirised particular social ills, while at the same
time celebrating the rich complexity and capacity for play of mixed Javanese/
Indonesian identity.
Gandrik productions
were developed through a creative process said to resemble that of folk
theatre, through improvisation by the group as a whole upon a skeletal written
script. This practice was extended further by NGO groups working in village communities
who staged group-devised, improvised sampakan style performances focussing on
local social issues. Meanwhile, as such rapprochement with folk theatre
practice was occurring in modern theatre , major changes were underway in the
world of Javanese performance, narrowing
the gap from the opposite direction.
Moving on – Yogya in the 1980’s and 1990’s
Radical changes in
the physical shape and cultural milieu of the city of Yogyakarta in recent
years have brought challenges to the conventional form of ketoprak, and
destabilised its grounding in wong cilik
social consciousness .
During the 1980s
and 1990s, rapid economic growth saw Yogya opened up to the forces of
capitalist development and globalisation. Multi-storied international hotels
and sumptuous bank buildings were erected along the main thoroughfares, middle
class housing complexes spread into the rice land on the edges of town, and
tourist guest houses and restaurants sprang up in the crowded alleyways of
kampung neighbourhoods. Alongside huge, colourfully painted billboards
depicting government development projects, others appeared celebrating familiar
brand names and images - Marlboro, Coke,
Kodak. On the historic main street, Malioboro, with its handicraft stalls,
foodsellers, buskers and pickpockets, there appeared in 1992 the amazing
apparition of the Malioboro mall, a gleaming, many-levelled shopping mall, with
escalators, designer clothing boutiques and a MacDonalds outlet. On the roads
the traffic, the relentless stream of cars, buses, taxis and myriads of
motorbikes, grew ever denser, noisier, more intrusive.
In the field of
arts and media, the boom was marked by the establishment of four new commercial
television channels alongside the single government station which had operated
previously. Observers noted an erosion of communally-oriented lifestyles, as
both rural and city householders stayed indoors, clustered around their
individual television sets, transfixed by the glamorous images of global media,
rather than spending their evenings gathering with neighbours. By the early 1990s
all five commercial ketoprak troupes which had previously performed nightly in
the environs of the city had gone bankrupt and disbanded. Two stage presentations per month by the
government radio group were the only regular public performances. The big East
Javanese troupe Siswo Budoyo came to town in 1994 to perform in the city square
for several months. But they, too, had begun to struggle, and by 2000 had also
disbanded. Performances for village weddings reportedly still occurred, albeit
less frequently. Neighbourhood Independence Day celebrations were more likely,
it was said, to be marked by a pop music or dangdut concert than ketoprak. Some
kampung no longer had access to an appropriate space for a performance, due to
city development, as in the case of Sosrowijayan Kulon which lost its community
hall (balai kampung) in the late
eighties with the building of a multi-storey tourist hotel.
If stage
performances of ketoprak had previously given expression to the values and
sense of shared identity of wong cilik communities, how should the
disappearance of such performances be understood? As the cultural dispossession of ordinary
people by the forces of "development" and globalisation, so that they
no longer produced their own performances, and had no channel of expression for
their cultural perspectives? Or as evidence that these perspectives were
themselves changing, and that the old “fit” between the stage world of ketoprak
and the social experience and concerns of ordinary folk was less keenly felt?
To form an
authoritative view on these questions issues would require detailed information
on the cultural attitudes and contemporary recreational tastes of Yogya kampung
communities, data to which I don’t have access. Intuitively one that somehow that ……
What I have been
able to document, however, is the way ketoprak practitioners responded to this
situation. Many certainly stopped performing and sought other ways of making a
living as commercial troupes disbanded. But others found new alliances, made
new kinds of social connections, engaged with the changing landscape. Arguably
in their hands ketoprak continued to give expression to significant aspects of
the local cultural identity of Yogyakarta, but that of a differently
constituted social group from the wong cilik kampung and village folk who had
previously formed its social base. This process followed on and extended major
shifts in the aesthetic form of ketoprak
which had set in train in the latter half of the 1970s.
Modernising Ketoprak – the Sapta
Mandala Factor
From the late 1970s
onward, a modernist and modernising agenda applied to ketoprak saw the
widespread introduction of written scripts, Western concepts of dramaturgy,
filmic techniques and the use of Indonesian language. The activities of the
prestigious, elite-connected group Sapta Mandala were central to this process.
The leader of the group, Handung
Kussudiarsono, had a vision of ketoprak which involved both high
artistic standards and the need for
constant innovation. Along with correct use of formal Javanese language and
court etiquette mentioned earlier, Handung also promoted the re-working of
conventional elements seen as out of keeping with contemporary expectations
(characterisations lacking psychological realism, for example), and the
development of new approaches appropriate to a changing world. He arranged
lectures for Sapta Mandala players on the concepts of Western dramaturgy, and
wrote scripts which they memorized and rehearsed for special performances and
television broadcasts. On occasion, when performing on national rather than
regional television, the language used was Indonesian rather than Javanese
To actors steeped in
the spontaneous improvisation of conventional ketoprak performance, this was
unfamiliar territory, entered with some reluctance. There were grumblings about
the stiff, awkward quality of memorised dialogue and the restrictions it placed
on actors’ creativity. Strong opposition
greeted revisions of standard characterisations which impinged on the status of
heroic figures seen as representative the ordinary folk. Some performers
probably consciously perceived that their form was being appropriated and
redefined, that artistic conventions were being transformed in ways that had
significant implications also for its social identity.
But the innovation
and written scripts gradually took over from the old ways. Until 1981 Sapta
Mandala performed each night in villages in the environs of Yogyakarta, staying
around 2 months in each location, playing out well-known stories according to
standard ketoprak convention.[1] In that year the
troupe moved to a permanent theatre building, given to them by presidential
grant, in the Janti area on the eastern border of the city. But the venture was
not a success - audiences soon dwindled to a trickle and there was no money for
the high maintenance expenses of the building. So in 1984 Sapta Mandala ceased
its routine, nightly shows.
During the remainder
of the eighties the group gathered for regular rehearsals of dramatizations of
Pak Handung's scripts which were staged at special invited performances and
broadcast frequently on television. A competition run by the local BERNAS
newspaper, whereby readers guessed answers to questions about a mystery story
currently being serialized on t.v. helped keep ketoprak in the public eye. And
via such television broadcasts in particular, it is said, the Sapta Mandala
model of innovative ketoprak, script-based, strongly influenced by Western
drama and film, spread widely and became entrenched as a new kind of standard.
Another key medium for the spread of this model was the yearly ketoprak
competition between the 5 kabupaten of Yogyakarta. Often a script-writing
competition was held as part of the exercise, with participating groups
choosing one of the scripts as the basis of their show. Senior ketoprak performers acted as advisers
to the groups, and participated along with theatre academics and cultural
experts in the judging of the shows. The style of performance practiced in
these contexts was given a specific name - ketoprak
garapan, literally "worked on/crafted ketoprak" – and acquired
official recognition. A government-sponsored seminar in 1990 defined ketoprak
garapan in terms of script-use and dramatic plot structure, as well as freedom
from many of the conventions of standard ketoprak, such as exclusive use of
Javanese language and gamelan accompaniment. The new form was recognized as a
distinct genre marking the latest stage in ketoprak's development, like ketoprak lesung, the simple folk-play
accompanied by rhythmic rice-pounding music from which ketoprak is said to have
originated, ketoprak pendapan, the
style of performance cultivated by some aristocratic figures in the 1920s and ketoprak panggung, that practised by commercial troupes.
Meanwhile, by the
mid-1980s, Pak Handung had begun to share his ideas and some of his
responsibilties with an assistant, Bondan Nusantara. Son of the star actress of
the Krido Mardi group, Kadarijah, who had been imprisoned at the time of the
anti-Communist reprisals in 1965, Bondan
had been performing ketoprak since the early seventies with various touring
groups but returned to Yogya and joined Sapta Mandala in 1980. Starting with
lowly soldier parts, he was later promoted to assistant director for routine
stage performances. Then came encouragement from Pak Handung to think and write
more ambitiously. Pak Handung organized a position for him with the Javanese
language magazine he edited, Mekasari,
where Bondan learnt much about writing. He began producing scripts for
television broadcasts and acting as assistant director to Pak Handung for Sapta
Mandala's experimental performances. For
a number of years he worked in the public relations division of the
Yogyakarta daily newspaper Berita
Nasional. After Pak Handung died in 1991 Bondan became leader and artistic
director of Sapta Mandala, while also playing a key role in all kinds of other
ketoprak activity taking place in Yogya – as organiser, advisor and judge in the annual
inter-kabupaten competition, as the director of grand performances held to mark
such occasions as the anniversary of the founding of Gadjah Mada University, as
script writer and director of many television productions.
Two other children
of former ketoprak stars hit by the 1965 anti-communist actions, who had become
itinerant commercial performers, returned to Yogyakarta during the 1980s and
became prominent local figures – Marwoto and Nano Asmarandana. Nano, in
addition to his involvement in Sapta Mandala, became active in ketoprak
festivals, formed a young people’s people’s ketoprak group, wrote many scripts
for his own and other groups, and received invitations from government
officials to direct performances celebrating the history of their areas. Marwoto, trading on his prodigious comic
talents, from the mid-eighties onwards became increasingly popular as a
comedian, with invitations to perform with many different groups. He formed a
highly lucrative association with the ketoprak performer and comedian Yatie Pesek
(the name making reference to Yatie's trademark, her pesek snub nose) and Didiek Nini Thowok, a well-known dancer and
female impersonator. Didiek's fame, extensive contacts and business acumen
ensured frequent engagements and high performing fees for the trio at official
functions, private parties and in television appearances.
It is intriguing to
see these three figures, by family background and personal experience
intimately familiar with ketoprak’s past populist links and wong cilik social
base, actively promoting its artistic
and social transformation, engaging confidently with the worlds of bureaucracy,
big business and popular media. In the main those currently involved in ketoprak production, in
directing, acting, writing scripts and developing new styles of performance,
are from the same class of people who have played equivalent roles
throughout ketoprak’s history. Most are
the descendants of actors, often over several generations, while others have
become involved through activities such as participation in ketoprak festivals.
While the initial impetus for modernisation of ketoprak might have come from
outside the established ketoprak community, from a figure of differing class
background, “insiders” quickly became involved. There is no sense of a
take-over of performance production by an outside, middle class group.
In conversation in
the mid 1990s, Bondan Nusantara
spoke explicitly of his understanding of
the aesthetic qualities and social connections of ketoprak. He descibed the
ketoprak of the future (using English terms) as "theatre art" rather
than an ongoing tradition with conventions grounded in Javanese cosmology.
Performances of this traditional kind had been based in an agrarian society
which was now being rapidly transformed. The ketoprak of today had to find its
support in the city, since village people now had different priorities. Whereas
conventional ketoprak, in his view, encoded the Javanese attitude of acceptance
that all would be well if each individual behaved rightly, he believed problems
had to be solved more rationally. He acknowledged a big debt in his thinking on
these issues to Pak Handung, after his long apprenticeship to the high-born,
modern-minded intellectual. But whereas Pak Handung associated ketoprak with
the priyayi world and its aesthetics,
he, Bondan, focussed on "the middle to lower class" (kelas menengah ke bawah).
In moving outside
the boundaries of Javanese popular tradition into the domain of contemporary
stage and film media, ketoprak performers likewise came into interaction with a
wider world of performers, journalists, producers. Mention was made above of
the involvement of modern theatre practitioners and academics in the training
of ketoprak actors in Western dramaturgy, and in judging ketoprak competitions.
Modern theatre actors participated in the ketoprak competitions and in television broadcasts. At
first the traffic was one way, and occurred largely in the sphere of
experimental artistic activity with limited public impact. But later ketoprak,
modern theatre and other forms of Yogya performing arts came together in collaborations with wide-reaching reverberations,
artistically, social and politically.
The first of these
collaborations bust into public attention and became an instant sensation in
the latter months of 1991, after the Sapta Mandala troupe performed the standard
ketoprak favourite Damar Wulan in a subversively humorous style which they
designated “ ketoprak plesedan” – plesedan meaning literally “slipped”,
and figuratively perhaps “perverted”. A
huge audience attended, including large numbers of the students, youths and
young professionals who had formed the standard constituency of modern
Indonesian language theatre. Many other performances followed, on stage and
television, audiences boomed and the media avidly followed the phenomenon.
The Ketoprak Plesedan Phenomenon
The phenomenon was
not a wholly new one. Peformers of ketoprak and other Javanese theatre had long
been playing with language in the plesedan manner, through a
"slippage" of sound between words to produce contrasting, nonsensical
meanings. Before his death in March 1991, Pak Handung had conceived of the
strategy of staging ketoprak humor
"humorous kethopak" to attract young viewers and counteract the
decline in popularity of stage ketoprak. A few experimental ventures in that
direction had been undertaken. But it was collaboration between Bondan from
Sapta Mandala, the modern theatre actor Butet Kartaredjasa, son of Pak Bagong,
and critic and writer Indra Tranggono, which brought ketoprak plesedan as such
to the stage. The initial production, Damar
Wulan, was followed in succeeding months by lakon including the Chinese
tale Sam Pek Eng Tay and Suminten (Ora) Edan set among rival warok, rural strong men. Lampu Aladdin, Aladdin's Lamp and Cleopatra were likewise spectacularly successful. In these performances the
title roles were taken by comedians - generally Marwoto and Yatie Pesek - with
Didiek Nini Thowok as comic maidservant, and Sapta Mandala actors playing the
other parts. Didiek also contributed his skills as a choreographer, and the Sapta
Mandala gamelan provided accompaniment.
Where the humour of
other Javanese theatre performances had used verbal slippage and play, in ketoprak plesedan not only language
but all aspects of performance could be subverted and overturned -
characterization, plot, standard interactions and scenes. The "hero"
figure in the standard version of a story might be depicted through theatrical
codes associated with villainous character, and appropriately suffer defeat; a
supposedly dignified ruler like the sultan in the Aladdin story might stumble
off stage, announcing he is going to the toilet. Toy guns might appear
anachronistically in fight scenes, and a supposedly dying character make a
joke. At the same time, with the opening up of dramatic form, innovative dance
choreography could be brought in for the staging of battles and other
encounters, and gamelan and keyboard combined to provide creative musical
accompaniment.
The
"openness" of plesedan performances encompassed also expression of
social commentary and critique. Topical political issues were referred to
directly - demokrasi, keterbukaan,
penggusuran (democracy, openness, land eviction), in the often very
Anglicised Indonesian language of contemporary political discussion, rather
than Javanese. In the lakon Suminten Ora
Edan, for example, Raden Subroto, ordered by his father to marry Suminten,
responds by calling his father's approach authoritarian (otoriter), out of keeping with the aspirations of the people (aspirasi rakyat). His father has
promised openness (keterbukaan) but
where is the openness, the demokrasi
when young people's views are silenced in this way? Should he protest (protes) in the streets? His father
replies with a lesson about respecting the culture of his own people and the
kind of democracy they have developed over the ages, demokrasi Pancasila, democracy reflective of the Pancasila state
philosophy, not the liberal democracy (demokrasi
liberal) of the West. In the play the character Subroto acknowledges his
father's superior knowledge of these matters, and accepts what is in fact an
iteration of the official, government line. [2] Whether audience
members were similarly accepting, or reacted cynically and mockingly to the
father’s words I do not know.
Bondan explains the
relationship of the different aspects of the performance - the overturning of
standard stage conventions, farcical humour and social criticism - in terms a
general approach of of pendobrakan tradisi,
breaking down of tradition. Both the conventions of the form and the values
they encode are questioned and challenged. He cites the examples of a minister
seated higher than the king, the anti-heroic portrayal of king-to-be Damar
Wulan, and the survival of the lovers in Sam Pek Eng Tay in place of their
usual suicide. All examples suggest the possibility of varying, even reversing
conventional rules and expectations if they are out of keeping with current
social reality. Such material, Bondan recounts, turned out to be very popular
among and presumably reflective of the attitudes of young people - he describes
plesedan performances as "a portrait of the young people of today through
ketoprak."
Young people indeed
predominated in the huge crowds who came to watch ketoprak plesedan. Newspapers
of the time report that they were
apparently largely from middle class backgrounds. Among ketoprak players and
afficianados there was much enthusiasm about the ability of plesedan
performances to attract young people back to ketoprak, and optimism that the
young might thereby become interested and involved once again in more
mainstream ketoprak. Some older players
and commentators, however, roundly condemned the new form as crude, facile and
threatening to the standards of conventional ketoprak. Cultural commentators,
meanwhile, speculated in interviews and in the press on the source of the
attraction of plesedan performances, and the nature of the connection between
these shows and their social context. Was it resonance with the shifting
realities of daily life, particularly the substitution of bland euphemisms for
straight truths ("karyawan"
"worker, employee" for buruh
"labourer; wanita tuna susila
"amoral woman" for pelacur
"prostitute" etc) which audiences found appealing? Was the plesedan
phenomenon an extension of the long-standing Javanese strategy for coping with
difficulties by making fun of them - a strategy all the more necessary today as
life becomes more complex and demanding? If, as one writer suggested, young
people hemmed in at every turn by established structures in their own lives
revelled in the subversion of structure of ketoprak plesedan, should this
experience be seen as liberating or simply escapist?
The plesedan craze
continued into 1992, with performances sponsored by hotels, department stores
and newspapers, appearances in the election campaign of the government party,
Golkar, broadcasts over Jakarta television and even a presentation at the
Indonesia in Miniature theme park, watched by President Suharto. But in
September of that year, after two people had been detained for use of “insulting” plesedan speech on stage, came an
announcement from Pak Bagong that Sapta Mandala's ketoprak plesedan performances
would cease. Officially the decision was prompted by these detentions, and the
perceived dangers of uncontrolled plesedan activities. While Sapta Mandala's
performances were never intended to attack or offend, and were strictly
monitored to that end, other groups might be less careful. But other factors,
including frictions between the star performers and Sapta Mandala management
over money, and rivalries within the management group itself, were also
rumoured to be involved.
When I met up
with the Sapta Mandala group in January 1993, several actors greatly
lamented the forced cessation of plesedan performances, seen as the most
exciting and successful development in ketoprak in recent years. With the
phenomenon of ketoprak plesedan had come a break through in the pattern of
“consumption” of ketoprak. Up till that point the efforts of ketoprak reformers
such as Pak Handung and the organisers of the ketoprak competitions to attract
interest from middle class viewers had met with only limited success. People
working in “white collar” positions, teachers, journalists, medical
technologists and the like, might attend a ketoprak performance staged for
celebration at their workplace. But they
did so as a social obligation connected with their position, rather than out of
interest in ketoprak per se. Performances without these institutional
connections, such as the yearly ketoprak festivals with their scripted garapan performances, attracted very
sparse audiences. But plesedan's particular blend of zany humour, spectacle and
social critique, its sophisticated, satirical approach, had attracted large
numbers of middle class people, particularly the young, to its live
performances and television broadcasts. Appearing at a time of supposedly
greater freedom of expression in the political sphere – the policy of so-called
keterbukaan “openness” – the new
ketoprak craze occurred at the right historical moment, resonated with shared
feelings, played out images and ideas which could be identified with across
social class lines. Once again ketoprak was
giving significant expression to a sense of local identity, but of a
differently constituted social group.
Short-lived though
it was, the plesedan craze had important legacies. One was an entrenching of
the model of humorous, parodic performances, staged live and broadcast through
the mass media. Another was continuing contact and collaboration between
ketoprak performers and figures from the world of modern Indonesian theatre, in
performances engaging with major political developments and with middle class,
largely student audiences.
The group Marwoto,
Didiek Nini Thowok, Yatie Pesek and friends entitled their camp interpretations
of existing lakon, intended solely to
amuse and entertain, ketoprak humor and later ketoprak jampi stres
"kethropak for curing stress".
They performed frequently on television, and for commercial shows in
venues such as big city hotels, presenting either a full lakon or, more often,
brief comic skits. Bondan, too, turned to comic performances focussed
especially on the electronic media. With
a group made up of some actors from Sapta Mandala and some new performers, he
directed a series of programs for the Surabaya state television taking the form
of a family serial, a Javanese "soapie", set among the members of the
family of a tumenggung (middle
ranking official) and termed ketoprak
guyonan, literally "joking ketoprak". Maintaining a number of features from
ketoprak plesedan - emphasis on humour, play on words, particularly new
English-derived terms, discussion of contemporary issues – the programs were
also inspired by the foreign-produced and Indonesian-dubbed serialized
melodramas Cassandra and Maria Mercedes, hugely popular among
Indonesian audiences at this time. The political reference of ketoprak plesedan
was replaced by moral and domestic themes. Suggesting that serials work by
engaging audiences emotionally both with the characters and the problems they
face, Bondan wrote scripts centring on issues such as tensions between parents
and teenage children and conflicting expectations of gender roles. Along with
television appearances the group also received invitations to perform at events
such as the anniversary of the founding of a bank or a conference dinner in a
big hotel. Bondan’s group adopted the
name Dagelan Mataram Baru “New
Dagelan Mataram”. Like
the original dagelan Mataram a comic genre developed as an offshoot of
Yogyakarta ketoprak in the 1960's, dagelan Mataram Baru consisted of short,
humorous skits located in contemporary, everyday settings
In these activities
Bondan claimed to be following a similar vision to that of Pak Handung before
him, innovating in accordance with the movement of the times so as to maintain
ketoprak's social relevance. In this context it made no sense to try to avoid
Western influence - globalisasi tidak
bisa ditolak "Globalization
cannot be resisted" he asserted. He used many English expressions,
directed to the specialized concerns of particular audiences (economic expressions
for a bank-sponsored celebration; medical terms for health awareness day),
often checked with his university-educated son and written out phonetically for
actors with a minimal knowledge of English.
In contrast to the
intimacy, informality and humour of Dagalan Mataram Baru performances were the occasional huge, spectacular,
lavishly-costumed and highly-crafted presentations of stories from Javanese
history which Bondan directed, both alone and later in collaboration with two
well-known modern theatre actors and directors, Jujuk Probowo and Bambang
Paningron. Dubbed “ketoprak kolossal”, involving scores of performers, and
incorporating sequences of forms such as court and folk dance and wayang, as
well as filmic techniques, these performances were presented in the context of
major political events and issues of the time. While the artistry and spectacle
of these events celebrated the grandeur
of adiluhung Javanese court
tradition, aspects of plot and character
portrayal implied critical reference to contemporary political issues.
The 1995 production
of Sumunaring Surya ing Gagat Rahina,
(roughly “The Sun rises on a New Dawn) for example, celebrated
50 years of Indonesian independence with a fictionalised evocation of
the period of power struggle between the
16th century kingdom of Pajang and the rising realm of Mataram. The
first presentation of the play took place in April 1995 at the Purna Budaya
theatre building, sponsored by the Bernas newspaper. In May it was broadcast on tv, and in September
staged in the palace of Yogyakarta,
marking the 50th anniversary of the maklumat by Hamengbuwana IX,
father of the current sultan, declaring support for the Republic of Indonesia vis-Ã -vis the returning Dutch colonists.
Audiences composed largely of students, journalists and other middle class
people are described as having sat “riveted” (terpaku) through a playing out of events understood to reflect on
the issue of succession in contemporary Indonesia.[3] After thirty years of Suharto’s rule,
discussion was rife of taking place of possible scenarios for his replacement.
The play ends with acknowledgement by the old king of Pajang of the legitimacy
of Senopati’s championing of the people’s struggle against Pajang’s harsh
regime. As the king dies, the figure of Senopati of Yogya appears silently at the edge of the
stage, prefiguring a new era, the “new dawn” of the title.
At the end of 1996,
the issue of the flaws of the present political regime and the need for change
was taken up directly by Senopati’s present-day successor as ruler of Mataram,
sultan Hamengku Buwana X. A series of three performances, of ketoprak,
traditional and contemporary music, and modern theatre, were staged on the
alun-alun, the city square in front of the sultan’s palace, on 8th.
9th and 10th
December, to mark the first windu,
eight year period, of the sultan’s reign.
The event was titled gelar budaya rakyat “people’s culture
show”, the
theme was political leadership, and the criticism was relentless.
The first night's
performance, described as "ketoprak kolossal", once again directed by
Bondan Nusantara, Bambang Paningron and Jujuk Prabowo, combined a variety of
different theatrical forms within the overarching narrative framework of a ketoprak
lakon. Entitled Bagaskara ing
Padahangkuru (Sun on the Fields of Kuru), it depicted events leading up to the Bharatyudha
war, the great battle of brother against brother at the end of the
Mahabharata, normally depicted by wayang
rather than ketoprak. Shadow theatre
techniques featured prominently in the show, The experimental form, wayang ukur, projected on a huge screen
at the back of the stage, portrayed
battles, journeys and interactions between puppet and human characters. Then lights dimmed and traditional wayang,
presented by the young dalang Seno
Nugroho and the "grand old man" Timbul Hadiprayitno, completed the
show. Bondan explained the choice of this lakon, in terms of wayang's
embodiment of traditional Javanese concepts of leadership. In wayang these
principles are found in a pure form not yet contaminated by the complications
of history. The setting of the Bharatatudha war also reflected the current
state of the Indonesian nation, returning to titik nol "the zero point", a time of unavoidable change
and upheaval.
In the show the
prospect of cleansing, restorative war was enthusiastically embraced. The
existing authorities, rulers of the Ngastina kingdom, the Kurawas, were
depicted as having power, control and material wealth but no moral authority.
The challengers to the the throne, the Pendawas, were weak materially and
numerically but had no moral legitimacy and popular support. For Javanese/Indonesian audience members,
association between the Kurawas and the New Order government - powerful, long-established,
ubiquitously controlling - and links between the Pendawas and forces of
opposition would have been crystal clear. Such connection was underscored by
statements from the Kurawa asserting the intent to preserve their own position
and prosperity, and humorous references to the special business privileges
enjoyed by Kurawa family members. In these conditions the Pendawa had a clearly
superior claim to the throne. Thus it was time to bring on the war which would
ensure their victory.
In the modern
theatre performance, Duta dari Masa Depan (Ambassador from
the Future), written and co-directed by En\mha Ainun Nadjib, the attack on the
Suharto regime is more direct and srident. The focal character is an aged,
decrepit but still despotic king, with a forceful bossy daughter, obvious
caricatures of President Suharto and his daughter, Mbak Tutut. The play shows
the king denounced for his oppression by a series of figures from
Javanese/Indonesian history and legend, and almost lynched by a mob of angry citizens
who have broken into the palace. The people shout for Petruk, the clown servant
from wayang tradition, to become their king. "Long live Petruk! Petruk for
king!" But Petruk refuses; his role is that of adviser only. So he sends
them out into the streets to find their own leader. "You are the just
king. You are the ones who must establish a new era". The masses spill off
stage in search of a leader - an image seemingly endorsing popular democracy
but potentially also conveying a sense of uncertainty and lack of direction.
Without a clear leader "the people" appear as a confused mob.
The sultan was well
aware of and presumably endorsed the content of the performances. In
conversation the sultan's brother recounted how the palace had vetted the
shows, and in the case of Emha's play requested some curtailment of political
critique. That the sultan himself attended rehearsals is something I can attest
to personally.[4] Actors certainly
believed that he was supporting, indeed promoting their political message,
protected them through his patronage from retaliation by the authorities.
"Who would have thought" asked Emha, backstage at the performance of
this play, "that we would have seen the sultan using the artists to attack
Suharto?" Representatives of the palace might not have described their
stance quite so bluntly. But by encouraging the artists to represent critically
the theme of "leadership", the sultan knew exactly what the results
would be.
The performances
presumably contributed to the building for the sultan of an image of
modern-minded, progressive political leader as well as sustaining and
protective king. Several years later this image came to full flowering, as one
million people gathered peacefully in the main square of Yogya the day before
Suharto’s resignation to listen to the sultan’s message of concern, solidarity
and blessing. His traditional kingly aura augmented by reformist political
credentials, he was able to serve as a symbol of unity and promise to this huge
diverse crowd.
For the ketoprak
director Bondan Nusantara, the sense of protection from sultan was actively
energising and enabling. After many years working for elite patrons, within the
Sapta Mandala troupe and in other contexts, to produce artistically rich but
politically constrained evocations of Javanese history, Bondan now broke ties
with these sponsors. He left his day-time job with a local newspaper, joined a
newly-created advertising firm, and started producing his own performances.
These shows were contemporary, entertaining and political. They applied
the light-heartedly humorous style of
Dagelan Mataram Baru to major political issues, in plots set in a family
business firm or other group standing for the nation. They satirised government
authorities and often conveyed support for the then oppositionist political
leader, Megawati, in her struggle against the Suharto regime. Giving him the
courage to be so outspoken, Bondan reported
at this time, was the knowledge that the sultan, in his power and
influence, supported what he was doing.
Indeed several
performances by Bondan's group Dagelan Matarma Baru received overt palace
endorsement. The production Gendul,
Gelas, Peyek ("Bottle, Glass, Peanut Snacks") of June 1997,
playfully critiquing the conduct of the elections in May of that year, was
followed up in early August by Kudu
Manthuk, Ora Kena Gedheg, ("Nodding Compulsory; No
Head-Shaking"). Here a woman performer is ostracised from a ketoprak
troupe for being too much influenced by her father, a famous actor - an
unmistakable reference to the ousted PDI leader, Megawati, daughter of the
first president of Indonesia, Sukarno. The show was introduced by the sultan's
brother, Joyokusumo, who stated with some regret that its audience was made up
of those "who are not directly involved in decision-making", since it
would make excellent food for thought for those in power. This was one of
several theatrical/artistic events supported by the Palace during 1997 as a
follow-up to the gelar budaya rakyat. The
sultan's brother explained that these had the same aims as the gelar budaya rakyat - to give artists a
voice, since they had interesting and important things to say.
Through
performances such as these, Bondan’s group began to gather a mass following
among students and other young people similar to that which had been attracted
to ketoprak plesedan some years earlier. [5] And in 1998, in
the heated political atmosphere leading up to and following Suharto’s
fall, Dagelan Mataram Baru, along with other Yogya artists and
performers, responded dynamically to this time of student protest and
celebration. In April of that year, for example. Bondan’s group appeared before
a packed audience of students in a theatre on the edge of the Gadjah Mada
university campus: in the same program the actor Butet Kertarejasa performed
one of his famous impersonations of President Suharto. The lakon for the
dagelan performance was set in a failing business firm owned by an aristocratic
figure named Den Har, with obvious reference to Suharto's economically bankrupt
Indonesia. Clown references to bunderan
and panti
rapih, the roundabout at the main entrance of the campus of Gadjah Mada
university and the Panti Rapih hospital on its southeastern side, where daily confrontations were taking place
between protesting students and the military, were followed by several
appearances of a slight figure in jeans pursued across the stage by a heavy,
lumbering moustached man brandishing a club
- a student demonstrator and a policeman. As the show finished audience
members thronged the stage, congratulating and feting Bondan and the actors.
Young people who would have had little interest in dagelan or ketoprak in the
past, would never have gone to the theatre to see such a performance, had
thoroughly enjoyed this one.
After the
resignation of Suharto, Dagelan Mataram
Baru continued to engage with the evolving
political situation. In mid-1998 they staged a performance Mbak Siti Har… dramatising the death of
a prostitute and inspired by the attacks on prostitution complexes and other
putatively immoral sites by orthodox Muslim groups around that time. It, too,
was well-received by educated, critical audiences. In the Yogyakarta arts festival
in June 1999, DMB stage a performance on the theme of that month's national
elections. Titled Sripah, "death" it opens with the death of
the father and head of a family firm, followed by discussions of attempts to trace the father's corrupt wealth and the holding of a free
election for a new director of the firm.
The young female winner of the election announces a new
non-authoritarian management structure and a focus on worker's welfare, but is
interrupted by a fearful report that the father is not dead. The father's voice is heard stating that
despite his physical death his regime goes on.
In a performance staged later that year entitled Celeng Dheleng, the deposed Suharto has become a huge, greedy pig, captured by village people,
tied to a pole and borne triumpantly offstage. Once again his menace continues,
in terrifying sightings of the pig, though here the perpetrator is a
contemporary official wearing the mask. The new lurah, Gareng, owns a toy
aircraft factory, peppers his speech with English phrases, and hopes for
re-election at the next meeting of the village council, in obvious reference to
Suharto's successor as President, Habibie.
The character Gus Dirjo, meanwhile, played by the veteran Yogya comic
Dirjo, wears dark glasses, sits in a wheelchair, talks in cryptic
contradictions and speaks of political dangers requiring a second Gologanjur
meeting - all clear markers of
connection with Abdurrachman Wahid or
Gus Dur, and the meetings at his home in Ciganjur of the group of political
leaders who came to be tagged the
"Ciganjur four".
But by 1999 the
economic crisis which began in 1997-1998 had hit hard. Bondan’s position with
the advertising firm had disappeared, and sponsors for performances were hard
to find. The sultan, Bondan reported with disappointment, was no longer
interested in supporting the arts, being too preoccupied with business.
Moreover the rise in inter-communal, inter-religious violence which had
occurred with the slackening of New Order social control threatened security at
live performances. Some conjectured that Bondan would face particular
difficulties as a Catholic with a Communist family background in satirising the
presidential regime of Gus Dur, as a revered Muslim leader. Economic pressures
are said to have played a part in weakening group solidarity. Whatever the
relative strength of the contributing factors, during 2000 Bondan's Dagelan Maram Baru group disbanded.
Other ketoprak groups likewise report a continuing decline in performing
opportunities, as business firms and former individual sponsors cut back on
expenditure, and mass media invitations also lessened. [6]
In January 2001 Yogyakarta ketoprak performers
from different groups, along with several modern theatre figures, came together
to pledge cooperation in promoting their art in this period of crisis and
challenge. A new organisation, the Forum Komunikasi Ketoprak Yogya, the
"Yogyakarta Ketoprak Communication Forum" was announced, with the
stated aims of creating solidarity among ketoprak performers, holding
workshops, discussions and other activities to train young performers and
develop new ideas, and collaborate with various bodies to strengthen ketoprak's
social position and market. In June a big performance was held, bringing
together four generations of ketoprak
performers from the 1960s-1990s, and sponsored by a range of public and
private institutions, The lakon Krisis
Mataram, "Mataram Crisis" written by Bondan, concerned political
intrigue in the early years of the Mataram dynasty, with various layers of
reference to contemporary events. A team of modern theatre directors and
ketoprak artists directed the show, on the model of the gelar budaya rakyat performance several years before. The
performance was dedicated to the memory of S.H. Mintardja, a famous author of
Javanese historical romances and prolific writer of ketoprak scripts, who had
died several years before.
Just a month later,
at the beginning of July, came another production, involving many of the same
actors and the same team of modern theatre directors, focusing again on a
revered veteran, a "grand old man" of the Yogya ketoprak world, Ki
Sugati, long-time leader of the troupe
P.S. Bayu. Pak Sugati being very much
alive rather than a deceased figure, was presented with an award at the
beginning of the show. Then he played himself as director, in a performance
entitled Ketoprak Interaski which
dramatised the interaction between the backstage and onstage worlds. On a
"stage within a stage" the classic lakon Arya Penangsang is presented,
with the famous comic actor Marwoto playing relatively straight in the title
role. Between episodes of the story, supposedly played over three nights, the
cast gathers for instruction and discussion. Conflicts between individual
actors are played out realistically and amusingly, for audiences
well-acquainted with these figures and their histories. Pak Gati struggles with
the problems of keeping the troupe afloat in a time of declining audiences. An
official arrives to demand payment of the compulsory performance tax. Gati
argues passionately for the need to maintain traditional standards of
excellence in performance, opposed by Marwoto and the female comic star Yatie
Pesek, who stress the importance of moving with the changing times, global trends
and public tastes. Given that the debate is so actual and current, with
participants representing roughly their own real-life positions, these
discussions have great resonance. The plentiful humour is often sharp-edged.
When a reporter brings news, for example, that a foreign foundation wishes to
help the troupe, Marwoto steers him away from Pak Gati towards himself - an echo, one might say, of the vigorous marketing activities of
Marwoto's group in recent years.
Marwoto's company "Marwoto
enterprises"' was the chief sponsor for the show, along with others.
In 2002 and 2003
there have been further developments and changes. A new group of actors, many
from modern theatre backgrounds, came together during 2002 under Bondan’s
direction. The DMB was revived but given new interpretation, in a move away
from dagelan style to more serious drama, in the staging of a Javanese language
adaptation of Oedipus Rex. Use of
filmic techniques, depicting, for example, the natural and human disasters of
floods, landslides and wars assailing the land of Thebes, applied modern global
technology to this iconic European tragedy. At the same time, Javanese language
and stage convention, and mention of the specific human disasters of debts and
communal violence ravaging the realm, which Queen Yokasta and her consort are
unable to stem, bring the reference back home.
2003 appears to have been a relatively
quiet year for ketoprak performances. A newly formed arts institute, Yayasan
Tembi, located near the Indonesian Arts Academy south of the city is staging
performances each month by local groups, and ketoprak was staged as part of the
yearly Yogyakarta Arts Festival. Modern
theatre, meanwhile, seems to have featured prominently in this very lively
festival, with its theme focussing on the involvement of young people in
artistic activity. A huge theatre event took place, for example, entitled
“Yogya Theatre on One Stage” which
involved performers from around 13 campus-based and independent theatre groups,
plus a team of prominent modern theatre figures as directors and artistic
advisors. The theme was described as a “thematic exploration of the development
of Yogyakarta culture from the time of Mataram, the time of transition to
Independence, the New Order and the period of reform”. (Kedaulatan Raykat May 28 2003)
The example of this last performance in a sense articulates
some of the key features of Yogyakarta performance I have been attempting to
review – a common sense of engagement with local social and political events
and conditions, and occasional movements bringing groups together to perform
collectively with this agenda. Such
features constitute a distinct local identity, but an ever-changing one,
shifting with changes in the society in which it is grounded. There is a
dynamic energy, an ever-present openness to change and sense of eager
enthusiasm to be part of modern Indonesia, whatever form that may take. In the
case of ketoprak, the once distinct reflection of lower class, wong cilik
identity has been lost as galloping social change and global cultural
influences have undercut such a view of the world. But ketoprak in Yogya has transformed itself in accordance with
such changes, and made new alliances, attracting audiences of students and
other middle class people, and collaborating with practitioners of other
genres. Current ketoprak performers, of the same family and class background as
their predecessors, engage actively in the new processes.
Time constraints in finishing this paper do not allow for a
following up of developments in modern theatre in recent years to match the
review of ketoprak activities. My impression is that theatre productions as
such have been less involved recently than modern drama techniques and the
participation of individual actors, directors and critics in the kind of
“theatre movement” I have been describing. But the situation may be shifting
with the economic decline, as the drying invitations from business sponsors and
government institutions restrict ketoprak, ever dependent on private and public
patrons. Modern theatre groups with wider social and intellectual networks and
connections with funding sources may do better. Political developments on the
national and local level and how theatre interacts with these will be an important
factor. For in expressing a sense of local identity intimately connected with a
changing social and cultural landscape performance is necessarily dependent on
the nature of such change.
The same time constraints also prevent what should have been
a much more extensive review of some alternate approaches to the expression of
local identity through theatre, by individuals and groups which all happen to
be based in the city of Solo. In a much earlier article[7] I compared
modern theatre activities in Solo and Yogya; to analyse how the differing
approaches might connect with the overall political, social and cultural
landcapes of the two cities would be a most interesting project. Here, though,
there is time only for brief mention of a few examples from the performance
world.
Earlier the group Gapit explicitly decried the impact of
modernisation and globalisation through a distinctive combination of raw
theatrical realism, rough Javanese language and visual and verbal poetry expressing a bleak vision of the
contemporary wong cilik social
world. While Gapit’s plays to some extent fit the picture of “resistant” local identity in Castells’[8] sense, both
thematically and aesthetically, the approach of other performers is perhaps
better seen as maintaining local distinctiveness by standing outside, while
nevertheless commenting on contemporary change. Slamet Gendono’s wayang suket, for example, combines
pasisisiran music and a rich story telling technique with literal “grass roots”
wayang and dynamic dance in totally unique yet locally-rooted style. Some
performances are light-hearted and satirical, some more serious, such as a 2002 invocation of the story of Dewi Kunthi, Karna and the violent
confrontation between brothers of the Bharatayuda war in apparent commentary
on recent communal violence. Wahyu
Widayati, of Inonk, who formerly gained prominence in the role of wise old women
figures in Gapit performances, has drawn on and developed the persona of the
iconic grandmother-sage Mbah Kawit in dance-based performances with several
other women. With stiff bodies, lined faces and whitened hair, attired in the
dress and/or accoutrements of market women, they perform the palace dances
srimpi and play out segments of wayang wong, simultaneously subverting the
hegemony of court culture and the dominant codes of female beauty and grace.
The appearance of the bodies of old, poor women defying the constraints of the
“beauty myth” might be seen as quite in keeping with global feminist thinking,
but the idiom is wholly local, and individually developed. Somewhat similarly, a recent performance by
the theatre group Gedag-Gedig of the Calon Arang story depicts the widow
“witch” as a smart, strong woman attempting to defend her rights and those of
her daughter, and the king’s men sent to captureand kill her as bumbling macho
fools. The performance extends the thematic interests in women’s rights and the
simply folksy performance style which the playwright and director, Hanind, has
developed over the years, quite independent of recent invocation of the Calon
Arang tale by prominent Indonesian literary figures, in the context of
widespread condemnation of violence against.
In Yogya theatre
groups working in common, either collaboratively or combatively, to engage with
social and cutlural trends; in Solo doing their own thing individually, in their own idiom, commenting on, but
standing at some removal from the tide of events and issues. Two approaches to the expression of local
identity fascinating to observe. Which approach might be more effective
aesthetically and socially is a question
left open at this point.
Dipaparkan dalam PILNAS HISKI VIII di Universitas
Airlangga, Surabaya, tanggal 26—28 Agustus 2003.
[1] In a unique
arrangement, each night actors were transported by van to and from the
performance location, rather than sleeping in makeshift quarters at the back of
the stage in the usual manner of professional troupes. Compared to the
rough-and-ready off-stage lifestyle of the other groups performing around
Yogya, with their late-night card-playing and carousing and intermittent
scandals, Sapta Mandala projected an outward image of order, stability and
respectability
[2] Bondan, as director and
scriptwriter, explains the development of
the conversation between Subroto
and his father in terms of a policy of deliberate even-handedness in ketoprak plesedan, resembling a newspaper in reporting all perspectives,
rather than promoting particular causes.
[3] Budi
Santoso, who was present at the first performance of this play, describes the
reaction of his fellow viewers in this way in his book Imaginasi Penguasa dan Identitas Postkolonial Penerbit Kanisius
Yogyakata 2000 p.83
[4]Climbing a ladder up to an area at the back of
the immense stage during the dress rehearsal for the ketoprak performance, I
saw Anjar, an actor friend, standing on my left. To someone on the right who
was not yet visible he announced "This is Ibu Barbara who has been
studying about ketoprak for decades". I looked over to see none other than
the sultan.
[5]
Indeed the plesedhan model itself was recalled and extended in a mid-1997
performance styled “Ketoprak Plus” in
reference to the incorporation into the show of different genres of entertainment – body building, a
fashion show, dangdut singing and street buskers. This presentation of the Middle Eastern story of Abunawas,
like ketoprak plesedan , also combined zany humour with political
reference, with camp
Didiek Nini Thowok in the
title role victorious over a corrupt government-business alliance, witty
commentary on the just-completed elections, and bold statements about equality
and human rights. The audience was evidently drawn from the same social
grouping as plesedan – largely youthful and middle class. See Susanto
2000 p. 109.
[6] The
enormous popularity of television
broadcasts by the Jakarta-based group ketoprak
humor has reputedly had a negative effect on the fortunes of Yogya groups,
along with a change in the system of ketoprak
programming on the national station
TVRI in Yogya.
[7]
B.Hatley ‘Constructions of “Tradition” in New Order Indonesian theatre’ in
Virginia Matheson-Hooker (ed) Culture and
Society in New Order Indonesia oxford University Press. Kuala Lumput 1993
[8]
Castells The Power of Identity P.356
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