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Pattimura and Reconciliation at Fortress Duurstede

Forgotten past: Risakotta, played by Francois Pical (left to right), Martha Christina (Julya Lo’ko), Maria (Nel Lekatompessy) and Pattimura (Alex Lekatompessy) sing about Saparua Island, Maluku, during a collaborative music and theater performance titled Pertempuran/KRUIT! The Forgotten History, at Erasmus Huis in Jakarta

Yuliasri Perdani (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, November 27, 2015

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Pattimura and Reconciliation at Fortress Duurstede

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span class="inline inline-center">Forgotten past: Risakotta, played by Francois Pical (left to right), Martha Christina (Julya Lo'€™ko), Maria (Nel Lekatompessy) and Pattimura (Alex Lekatompessy) sing about Saparua Island, Maluku, during a collaborative music and theater performance titled Pertempuran/KRUIT! The Forgotten History, at Erasmus Huis in Jakarta.

Melodies on piano, bamboo flute and Moluccan tifa drums precede the arrival of Pattimura on stage.

Decades after his execution, Pattimura returns to Fortress Duurstede to face the Dutchman whose family his army killed, to reconcile with a fellow fighter and to ponder his identity.

Is he an ordinary man named Thomas Matulessy? A national hero called Kapitan Pattimura? Or just a face on Indonesian banknotes?

The music and theater production, Pertempuran/KRUIT! The Forgotten History, staged at Erasmus Huis in Jakarta on Nov. 19, offers a distinct perspective on Indonesian national heroes and the shared history of Indonesia and the Netherlands.

KRUIT! '€” meaning gunpowder in Dutch '€” is a collaborative music and theater performance by Dutch and Ambonese performers. The performance was directed by Anies de Jong of DeltaDua, the sole Moluccan-Dutch music theater company in the Netherlands.

'€œPattimura is a hero in here,'€ de Jong said prior to the Jakarta performance.

'€œBut I believe he is not just a hero. As a human, he had flaws. In the play, we try not to romanticize him, but simply present him as a human.'€

It was May 16, 1817, when Pattimura led hundreds of well-armed Moluccans to attack the Dutch Fortress Duurstede on the island of Saparua in Maluku, slaying all the inhabitants, including Commissioner Van den Bergh and his family.

The Commissioner'€™s six-year-old son, Jean Lubbert, was the only survivor.

It was a short-lived victory for Pattimura. Nine months later, the Dutch Army recaptured the fortress and Pattimura was hanged.

Dutch playwright Frank den Os takes the audience back to that time when a grown up Lubbert revisits Saparua and recalls all the tragic memories.

Pattimura reappears at the fortress, recalling the colonial forces'€™ ruthless hunt for spices and the importance of his violent struggle against Dutch, and also facing the anger of Lubbert.

Other characters allow the audience to see the different sides of the history. Pattimura has a sweet reconciliation with fellow fighter Martha Christina Tiahahu, while Lubert welcomes his childhood friend, Maria.

Acting mainly as the performance'€™s narrator is a character named Risakotta, a native religious teacher who witnessed the events of 1817.

The struggle: The character of Martha Christina, daughter of Moluccan resistance leader Captain Paulus Tiahahu, performs a solo during KRUIT! in Jakarta.
The struggle: The character of Martha Christina, daughter of Moluccan resistance leader Captain Paulus Tiahahu, performs a solo during KRUIT! in Jakarta.

Sweet and bitter moments in Saparua are relived on the stage. There is an air of festivity when the characters sing and dance to the upbeat percussion from instruments including a unique Maluku instrument made of kora kora leaves.

Maria and Martha take us to their darkest moments. Martha recalls the moment she witnessed the execution of her father by the Dutch and her relentless struggle until the day she died.

Maria, the daughter of a Dutch sergeant and a Molluccan mother, reveals the challenges of living between the two sides.

The play is not merely a journey to the past.

Pattimura discusses how Indonesia has commemorated his contribution. A university and several streets are named after him. A monument is erected to commemorate his fight and his portrait is on our banknotes.

'€œBut it is only the Rp 1,000 banknotes,'€ Maria teases.

The dialog of Pattimura, Lubbert and Risakotta can be translated to the present, where violence still occurs and reconciliation remains a challenge.

The performers speak in Dutch and Ambon Malay, with subtitles for the Ambon Malay provided on a screen. It is quite challenging for Indonesians with no Moluccan heritage to follow the dialog.

Frank den Os wrote the performance based on his research in the Netherlands and used the Dutch novel De schreeuw van de witte kaketoe (The Cry of the White Cockatoo) by Johan Fabricious, inspired by the life of Jean Lubbert, as his main source.

DeltaDua performed KRUIT! from February to June in the Netherlands last year before adding Moluccan percussion tunes to the show in collaboration with the Indonesia-based Molucca Bamboowind Orchestra (MBO).

The music and theater production was taken to Ambon on Nov. 13 and Nov. 14 before concluding its Indonesian tour with a single performance in Jakarta on Nov. 19.

'€œUnlike Java that has ketoprak theater, Ambon has no theater culture,'€ MBO composer Rence Alfons said. '€œSo what DeltaDua and the MBO presented there was something new. The performance received positive responses from its Ambon audience.'€

Frank den Os hopes to take the musically-enriched KRUIT! back to Dutch audiences soon.

'€œWe think it'€™s very important that people in Holland know about what happened here '€” not just about the historical facts, but also about the underlying emotions that people felt.'€

'€” Photos by JP/Wendra Ajistyatama

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