The seminal Teater Koma would bring its 159th production, entitled J.J: Sampah-sampah Kota (J.J: The Trash of the Town) to the stage in the Graha Bhakti Budaya building of the Taman Ismail Marzuki arts and cultural center in Central Jakarta from Nov. 8 to 17.
eater Koma’s latest play, J.J: Sampah-sampah Kota (J.J: The Trash of the Town), was an adaptation of a production from the theater group's early years, entitled J.J. - Jian dan Juhro, that it staged for one time only in 1979, although many other theater groups and students have performed their own adaptions in recent years.
While the script stays faithful to the original one written by patron N. Riantiarno in 1977 for his unborn child, the son, Rangga Riantiarno, now 40, gave a fresh approach to the play by using current technology.
“There are no photo archives or video footage of the play, but its poster I mistook as an image of a pair of boots when I was younger. A closer look would show that it actually reads 'J dot J', in which each ‘j’ was made by scribbling the names Jian and Juhro,” he told the press during a sneak peek on Oct. 29.
The play would be his second time acting as the director. His first was when he directed Antigoneo in 2011 – an adaptation of Antigone Now by Slovenian playwright Evald Flisar.
With more compact dialogue and the use of multimedia to replace the practical stage tricks in the original production, Rangga said the play's duration would be shortened to two hours.
“Originally, there was a dummy floating above the stage to represent a character. We changed it so that particular character would only appear on stage and interact with other characters, singing even, through multimedia technology,” he said.
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