TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
UCNO: A performance on suffering & liberation
Mourning: Singaporean actress Gloria Tan brilliantly plays a mourning widow in the monodrama Untitled Cow Number One
Change Size
M
span class="inline inline-center">Mourning: Singaporean actress Gloria Tan brilliantly plays a mourning widow in the monodrama Untitled Cow Number One. (Courtesy of Calvin Emil)
A collaborative theatrical performance weaves ancient belief and contemporary questions to shine the light on a widow’s struggle for liberation.
Toward the end of the intense performance, the stage fell into an ominous silence.
The woman in red approached the empty, red cage suspended in the center of the stage. She calmly opened the cage’s door and in one fluid motion she let the imaginary bird fly away. She then fixed her gaze on the audience before uttering her final manifesto.
“I want nothing from this world, and nothing from the next. I am free,” the woman said.
It was a powerful ending to the 30-minute theatrical tour de force of the struggle so common to us, human.
A struggle that on the surface was triggered by the death of a loved one, but on a much subtler level was incited by the burning question on whether our existence here has a true meaning or not.
It was this very struggle that catapulted the woman, brilliantly played by Singaporean actress Gloria Tan, from trying to overcome her personal grief over the passing of her husband into questioning the role the divine played in human life.
“Do you have any advice for the weak? Do you have any cure for the pain? Do you know where he has gone? Do you know what madness is? Do you know where the tears come from?” she asked the gods during her performance.
Questions turned into lamentation.
Lamentation peaked into desperation, which finally yielded into realization that was encapsulated in her final manifesto.
Drawing inspiration from India’s mourning tradition, which usually spans 12 days, hence the 12-part performance, the key strength of the monodrama is definitely its script, penned by the award-winning Singaporean Haresh Sharma. He has written more than 100 plays, which have been staged across the globe, and is the resident playwright at the Singapore-based The Necessary Stage (TNS).
“The script is so powerful that I believe a simple, live reading of it would be sufficient to make a poignant theatrical performance,” Bali’s leading dramatist Cok Sawitri said of the Untitled Cow Number One (UNCO) script.
The script, which juxtaposes elements and characters from Hinduism and Buddhism, requires the actor to shift and transform into various characters, from the sacred cow that Lord Shiva rides on, Lord Shiva himself to Lord Krishna, a child and a widowed woman. It manages to be both clear and complex at the same time.
“Untitled Cow Number One is one of Haresh’s most open scripts which invite other artists to engage with it as collaborators. Yet the theme is universal — about the human condition of investing all of our emotions in one source of happiness, and losing one’s identity when that relationship ceases to be. It brings us through that familiar journey by presenting the milestones,” the performance’s director, Alvin Tan, said.
Previously, the UCNO script was performed at the Macau International Fringe Festival (2000), the Asian Theater Festival in Busan (2002), the National Theatre Festival in New Delhi (2003), and the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival (2015).
“The director and actor have succeeded in turning this script into a fresh and thought-provoking stage presentation. I believe it will inspire the local theatre communities to embark on new experiments,” art professor I Wayan Dibia said.
The monodrama was performed on March 23 and 24 at GEOKS, a privately-owned art space in Singapadu, Gianyar. It was a collaborative production involving TNS, Surabaya-based WAFT-LAB and Bali-based Cata Odata.
WAFT-LAB, which is a collective with more than 10 years of experience working in the development of interdisciplinary arts in Surabaya, has involved six of their members to create the audio and visuals for this show.
“This is the very first time for WAFT-LAB to make artwork for a play. We usually produced the audio, visuals or lighting for our previous projects. What makes this different is that we have to support the emotions that arise continuously and change quickly during the play,” one of WAFT-LAB’s founders, Helmi Hardian, said.
Cata Odata is a progressive art house with an interdisciplinary approach. Its mission is to grow together and to facilitate the potential of artists and creative practitioners based in Bali and East Java.
The performance is part of CO.Lab, Cata Odata’s annual non-profit program to foster creative conversation and connect artists and creative practitioners from different social and cultural backgrounds.
“Through CO.Lab, we invite the artists and creative practitioners to step out of their comfort zone, to break down the walls that stand between each creative fields, as well as to share their knowledge and experience in open discussions,” Cata Odata’s founder, Ratna Odata, said.
