1 post tagged “theatre”

It’s another cultural adventure, everyone. 

This time it’s a play entitled ‘Republik Anthurium’ performed by Teater Tetas and directed by AGS. Arya Dipayana. In Jogja it’s performed on April 22-23 in Gedung Societet (I went there last night).

I think the distinctive part of this play is the choreography that fills up the entire performance. From the beginning to the ending, the audience were enthralled with such a rich performance that not only presented a ‘sketch’ on the hectic nowadays life that might awake us with a new perspective but was also full with well-arranged, sometimes acrobatic, movements.

The characters on the play were all clad in similar fashion in which the distinction in gender, social class, race and the like seems to blur. If only I had a camera, maybe I could show you all what they’re like. Well, they wore loose trousers and upper piece that just looked absurd which I think really best represented the unknown easily-instigated mass the whole play was about.

The play began with some people making weird gestures as they froze and then the gestures changed several times. And then I found it difficult to follow the plot. But maybe plot was not what the play emphasized. It’s all about, as mentioned in the synopsis, a sketch of a country in which issue, Anthurium used as a metaphor, built the order. An Anthurium was passed on from one people to the next, first with ignorance but then with amazement. I think it depicts the way people are easily driven to follow an issue.

In one scene, three couples were having discussion. A couple of women were discussing a whitening product. One of them said, ‘white skin is not everything but everything is nothing without white skin.’ Haha. What do you think of such lunacy? Meanwhile, the couple in the middle were chatting on global warming and the other one on politics. Y’know, discussion like whether to join a political party or to abstain. Such superabundant ideas that potentially stir up the entire society!

I found myself shivering as some characters were marching and then together they pronounced sort of ambitious self-motivating words as: ‘I have to gain it, as everybody is on the same race,’ ‘I have to win,’ …I mean it’s just so much reminiscent of our hectic everyday life in which everything is one big competition. Students go to school/college but run a survey to find out how many of them who do it because they really pursue intellectuality instead of graduation certificate to ‘guarantee’ their future. Even my own academic tutor thinks I’m a sort of raw material to be processed in a giant industry called education and then stored in the labor market. She once criticized my attitude and said I wouldn’t make any job interview because I seemed clumsy and sometimes gave wrong (or unpleasant?) answers to her questions. She didn’t seem to care that maybe I attended classes because I really needed to know something.

I’m not blaming those who study for the sake of succeeding this whole job competition thing because here we are, in the system that demands us to understand it all as competition. But maybe everything just should be a part of our anxiety, that something definitely goes wrong.

I think Republik Anthurium is another cultural adventure that really enriches my insight. It marked the third time I went to Societet for a play after ‘Lenggok’ produced by Teater Retorika (Faculty of Philosophy of Universitas Gadjah Mada) and ‘Sampek Engtay’ by Teater Koin (Faculty of Economics of Universitas Islam Indonesia).

Anyway, I was given a publication leaflet of the next play. The title is 'Camar,' adapted by Gunawan Maryanto from Anton Chekov's "The Seagull." Studio Banjarmili, April 29-30, 2008 at 8 pm. The word 'Gratis!' which means 'for free' suddenly seduced me right in the economy spot somewhere in my brain :p. Interested, anyone? (This question is particularly addressed to my dear fellow Indonesian Vox neighbors^^)