FTI makes artistic response to changing times

Leon Agusta , Contributor , Jakarta | Thu, 01/17/2008 2:46 PM | Potpourri

The Arena Theater at the Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center in Jakarta exuded the atmosphere of a reunion as theater personalities, spanning the decades from the 1970s until now, gathered recently to celebrate the third anniversary of the Indonesian Theater Federation (Federasi Teater Indonesia: FTI) with the presentation of an award for "Excellence in Theater" to one of Indonesian theater's most prolific playwrights and directors, Putu Wijaya.

It was quite the party, with living legend actor, director, playwright and poet Bahkan Rahman Arge coming in for the festivity from Makassar in Eastern Indonesia and playwright and poet Ikranegara newly returned from America.

They joined a host of other invitees and federation members, including the FTI Award jury -- Nano Riantiarno, Danarto, Kenedi Nurhan, Benny Yohannes and Radhar Panca Dahan -- to unanimously declare Putu one of the key movers and shakers of the Indonesian theater scene over the past few decades.

Spirits were certainly running high at the ceremony that evening of Jan. 9. Theater and film actors Didi Petet and Slamet Rahardjo, who were called to the stage to set the mood for the award, immediately began "dueling" verbally with one another to call out the names and accomplishments of the many brilliant theater figures who had gone before, in a tribute to the art and the men who have made history with it.

One by one the names of the nation's most revered playwrights and directors -- Usmar Ismail, Asrul Sani, Wahyu Sihombing and D. Djajakusuma -- were called out and anecdotes from their lives and work were shared.

Butet Kartarajasa, an actor and comedian from Yogyakarta then stepped up to stir raucous laughter with a topical reading of Seno Gumira Adi Darma's satirical short story Paman Godel, to which he added color and nuance with a precise imitation of the voice of currently ailing former president Soeharto.

Fasli Jalal, the director general of higher education of the Department of National Education and member of the FTI Honors Council, brought the spotlight back to focus on the award recipient with stories of back in 1988, when Putu was a visiting theater director and Fasli was finishing up his doctorate degree at Cornel University in Ithaca; including a stirring tale of how Putu made an astounding goal with his knee during a soccer game with rival Syracuse.

In the midst of all this, as if to not be outdone, the man of the hour, Putu, looking fit and strong enough at 63 years of age to shoot a dozen more such goals, took center stage to bring to life one his most terrifying and humorous short story characters.

In this dynamic and powerful reading about a doctor working in the interior of Papua, Putu proved without a doubt why he was, indeed, the right choice for the FTI Award 2007.

So why only now, after so much time has passed is there so much reminiscing, passionate rethinking and discussion, and downright excitement emerging from Indonesia's theater circles? And why this particular playwright/actor/director?

Radhar Panca Dahana, 43, poet, essayist and FTI jury member, explains this frenetic revival as a delayed response to the longstanding concern and anxiety that has been haunting cultural circles as a crisis of confidence and creativity.

As a man of culture, he and his colleagues in FTI, along with the theater community, felt the need to do something to address the problems and to get the arts sector, specifically theater, back on track.

From the middle of the 1980s onwards, the previously popular theater festivals began to lose their attraction for the public.

The formerly eagerly awaited Teen Theater Festivals (Festival Teater Remaja), which had been the driving force for encouraging young actors, directors and other theater people to work harder and harder, had closed up shop and faded into oblivion.

The main factor in their demise being the loss of the central theater figure of the time, Wahyu Sihombing, and an increasing skimpy budget for theater competitions and other art activities at the Jakarta Arts Council (Dewan Kesenian Jakarta: DKJ). And with further passage of time, in the eyes of the public, even the three major icons of Indonesian theater -- Teguh Karya's Teater Populer; W.S. Rendra's Bengkel Teater; and Arifin C. Noor's Teater Kecil became more a matter of history than of contemporary interest.

Then, Teguh Karya and Arifin C. Noor passed away, and only Rendra, who rarely performed in public, remained as a reminder of the dynamic and moving theater events of the 1970s and early 1980s.

By the mid 1980s, the diminished flow of new talent into mainstream theater from the Teater Remaja groups began to be felt more immediately, with only Agus Arya Dipayana's Teater Tetas and Boedi S. Otong's Teater Sae stepping up to fill the gap and continue Indonesia's modern tradition of dynamic experimentation in the performing arts. Yet less than a decade later, Teater Tetas faded from the scene, leaving only the brilliant efforts of Boedi S. Otong to represent the younger theater circles. Then, Boedi left for Europe and hasn't been heard from since.

Even though some vital signs of life continued to be noticed in the theater community throughout the greater Jakarta area, especially at the grassroots level into the late 1990s, the attempts were sporadic and support, both moral and financial, was sparse, and there was no clear way to measure success. This was heartbreaking.

Then after the monetary crisis and political turmoil of 1998 onward, the situation in the theater circles began to look grimmer than ever before. Ikranagara moved to the United States in 1998, and the only senior theater powerhouses remaining were Putu and Nano, with no real hope of a new generation rising quickly from the midst of entrenched public lethargy toward the arts and stagnation in creative circles.

Neither Putu nor Nano gave up the cause, yet time was passing and the clouds of doubt and anxiety still held much of the theater world in thrall. Then, in 2000, various voices merged into a discussion of the need to identify the actual problems and constraints holding theater back at a meeting in Rahar's home.

The consensus was that there was a dearth of institutional unity in the current world of Indonesian theater, and that something should be done to rectify this.

Efforts were initiated in this direction, and on Dec. 27, 2004, around 250 Greater Jakarta theater troupes gathered in Taman Ismail Marzuki's Teater Halaman to declare that the Indonesian Theater Federation (Federasi Teater Indonesia: FTI) had been born as an institution for the promotion and support of the performing arts and artists.

The FTI has since emerged as a strong and consistent voice for theater circles, constantly seeking out ways to bring public attention to the situation and activities of the theater community overall. And one of the ways FTI has hit upon to do this is the awarding of honors to various artists for their work and achievements in theater. W.S. Rendra received the FTI Award for Excellence in Theater in 2006.

So why was Putu selected this time around?

The reason is that Putu, as W.S. Rendra so eloquently explained in his speech at the January 2008 awards ceremony, "is a personality who delves deeply and then ever more deeply into himself, reaching a profound level of maturity".

Over the last 20 years, through wide publication and translation into many different languages, Putu's writings and other work have carved him a special niche in the history of theater not only in Indonesia but worldwide.

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