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4D/Toto/Score
|
The Coffin
Is Too Big For The Hole Presented by
|
The Theatre Practice
(cont'd) |
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to FrontPage
of article
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.
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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.
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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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