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  The Coffin Is Too Big For The Hole  Presented by

      The Theatre Practice  (cont'd)

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Synopsis

  A very grand coffin was built for my grandfather who passed away. On the day of my grandfather’s funeral many people come to see the grand coffin. However, on attempting to bury the coffin, it appeared that the grave too small. The funeral parlour workers exclaimed, “The grave is not too small, the coffin is too big!” Owing to my countries’ dense population, the government’s national planning committee sets out on the size allocated for graves. The matter could not be settled with the funeral parlour so we both went to see the officer in charge of national planning. The officer listened to my argument and approved my plea with all but one exception.

  My story later was voted one of the top 10 national news stories of the year and the officer in charge was voted the most Humane Personality of the Year!

  And so my grandfather was safely put to rest in his grave but for the one exception we made. But whenever I see the rows and rows of standard size graves in the cemetery, I…

Putu Wijaya

  Born on April 11, 1944 in Puri Anom Tabanan, Bali, I Gusti Ngurah Putu Wijaya, or known simply as Putu Wijaya, is one of the best-known and most prolific figures in contemporary theatre and literature in Indonesia.

  Interested in writing and directing theatre since high school in Bali, his theatrical activities took precedence over his law degree studies in Yogyakarta, Central Java in the mid-1960s. In 1969, with a law degree in hand, Putu moved to Jakarta. Rather than practicing law, he began a career as a journalist and actor and established his present theatre group, Teater Mandiri, in 1970.

  To date, Putu has authored more than 40 plays, 40 novels, 1000 short stories, 18 film scenarios, 3 films, about 200 episodes for television, 15 monologues, and countless articles and theatre and film reviews. A number of his works have been translated into Dutch, English, French, Russian, Japanese, Thai, German and Arabic. He has been the recipient of 19 national and international awards, including 1980 Southeast Asian Writers Award presented in Thailand, as well as awards from the Jakarta Arts Council and the Indonesian Film Festival.

  Besides establishing and directing Teater Mandiri since the early 1970s, over the past five years he has directed three major motion pictures and has recently been one of Indonesia’s most active writers and directors of television mini-series and movies.

  Putu also has had extensive international experience, first in 1973 for seven months as part of an artist community in Ittoen, Kyoto, Japan. The following year he joined the International Writing Program in Iowa City. Putu returned to the United States in 1985 for three years as a visiting Fulbright Artist-In-Residence at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, Cornell University and Wesleyan University.

  Besides directing GERR (GEEZ) and AUM (ROAR) at the University of Wisconsin and Wesleyan University, Putu also directed a production of ROAR at La Mama, an Off-Off Broadway theatre in New York, as part of their 1988 Third World Institute for Theatre Arts Studies (TWITAS).

  In 1991, Putu Wijaya and Teater Mandiri toured a production of YEL on a four-city American tour as part of the Festival of Indonesia, a year-long joint American Indonesian project celebrating Indonesian culture.

  During 1992, Putu returned to Kyoto as a guest writer-in-residence at the Southeast Asian Center at the University of Kyoto with a grant from the Japan Foundation.

Teater Mandiri

  Teater Mandiri was established in the early 1970s by Putu Wijaya. As both the exclusive playwright of all Teater Mandiri productions and director of all but a few, Putu doesn’t depend on a set script, but is continuously able to adapt each production with the invaluable input of each member of Teater Mandiri. “Mandiri” is a Javanese word meaning independent or self-sufficient, which reflects the basic credo of the group.

  Teater Mandiri is more of a family than an organization. There are no auditions to become a member of Teater Mandiri; whoever shows enough interest and commitment can join a production. Consequently, the number of current or active members is constantly fluctuating. Most of the members have no professional training in theatre, and in fact have widely varying social and educational backgrounds. Each production begins with the people in the cast, never from the script.

  The script is shaped by the people who have joined the cast for that particular production. Teater Mandiri’s motto is; “bertolak dari yang ada”, which means we make maximum use of whatever is at hand. This concept doesn’t mean working with things only as they are, but to trying to create whatever we need from what is available.

  We prefer to consider our production as “tontonan” or as performance events rather than dramatic performances. It is our medium to express thoughts about contemporary life (in Indonesia) in a way that is accessible to our audiences. Our goal is “mental terror”. Our tontonan strive to disturb the spectators, to shake them up, to make them reconsider their assumptions.

  We do not provide answers, but rather re-examine what has been taken for granted through the lens of desa (place); kala (time) and patra (adjustment). Together desa, kala and patra are about adjusting to one’s surroundings, both spatially and temporally.

  Teater Mandiri has performed steadily in Jakarta and in other cities in Indonesia since 1974, including such productions as ADUH, ANU, LHO, HUM-PIM-PAH, ENTAH, NOL, EDAN, BLONG, AWAS, DOR, LOS, GERR, AUM, ZAT, TAI, FRONT, AIB, WAH, YEL, BOR, DARDERDOR, NGEH, KEOS.

  In 1991, Teater Mandiri performed YEL, as part of a four-city United States tour under the auspices of the Festival of Indonesia, a yearlong joint American/Indonesian project celebrating Indonesian culture.

  Teater Mandiri also regularly performs staged readings of Putu Wijaya’s short stories and poetry.

The End

 

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