What is love? Love is extraordinarily difficult to define, and is perhaps the most complex word to possess multiple meanings that are shared and understood by people around the world.

Girls in the drama club at Tarakanita I high school provided their own definition of love through a colorful and hilarious show based on the popular Bollywood 1998 film, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (Something Happens in My Heart). In their musical version, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai: Love is Friendship they shared their own message that love is friendship.

The 15th production of the high school theater group was performed from Feb. 22-24 at the Gedung Kesenian Jakarta. On opening night, the historic theater was filled to the hundreds. The seats were fully booked, with perhaps only five seats remaining unclaimed throughout the performance.

The audience was greeted by several students dressed in traditional Indian saris, who placed a red dot between the eyebrows of each visitor to create a bindi (traditional Indian forehead decoration).

Once the audience was seated in the Indian atmosphere so successfully established by Tarakanita students, the curtain opened to a catchy scene of dozens of performers dancing to Bollywood-style choreography in traditional Indian and modern costumes.

Among the lavish set decoration, the performers lip-synched to the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai theme song, capturing the audience's attention from the very beginning of the show -- successfully creating a solid first impression.

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai: Love is Friendship was created by Tarakanita I students in Years 1 through 3, supervised by the drama club and with additional support from the parents' board and third parties.

Tarakanita I high school is a private girls' Catholic school operated by Yayasan Tarakanita. The school, located on Jl. Pulo Raya in South Jakarta, is famous for its marching band and theater group, and produces several plays each academic year.

The school shows one pentas besar (big production) for the public, usually at the Gedung Kesenian Jakarta or the Graha Bakti Budaya theater at Taman Ismail Marzuki, and one production performed at the school during an open house presenting their extracurricular activities.

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai: Love is Friendship tells the story of Rahul Khanna (acted boyishly by Janina Maia), mostly in flashback. Rahul has just lost his wife, Tina (played exquisitely by Ravenska Atwinda Diva), in childbirth, and is left with his newborn daughter, Anjali Khanna (Agnes Erlisa Sarianto) and his elderly mother.

Meanwhile, Tina has left eight letters for her daughter to read on every birthday. The eighth one is the most important: Anjali reads this letter to find out about Rahul's best friend, Anjali Sharma (Stefianna Fillia Astari), who was part of a love triangle with her late mother.

So little Anjali Khanna tries any and every means to reunite Rahul and Anjali Sharma.

The songs and dances of the play were as beautiful as those in the film, and the scenes were paced with intensity -- although at times, the ping-pong dialogue was too fast to catch or was not articulated clearly. Even so, the dialogue was, in almost every minute of every scene, hilarious.

The director and performers were courageous in including scenes that interacted directly with the audience to "expand" the stage area to the theater seats, mingling with the audience while remaining in character.

All of the performers delivered their best. Those actresses in male roles were able to make the audience suspend their disbelief and believe that they were, indeed, boys or men.

Outstanding performances were given by Stefianna Fillia Astari, who acted almost flawlessly as both the young and adult Anjali Sharma, with a noticeable difference in her interpretation of behavioral age progression. Agnes Erlisa Sarianto was cast successfully as the sometimes annoying, but sometimes sweet little girl, Anjali Khanna.

Tri Dharmayanti should also be noted for her delivery as the super-annoying yet witty, hilarious and flirtatious Grandmother.

Although the score and songs featured no new adaptations of the original film soundtrack, the music department inserted sound effects and songs in between the scenes to support the mood built by the performers.

The choreography was also beautifully set. However, the most important dance segment -- when Rahul, Tina and Anjali Sharma dance together to illustrate their bizarre love triangle -- seemed slightly tedious.

Some errors in continuity appeared in the performance. For example, the video display used as part of the performance showed a long-haired Anjali Sharma, when on stage, the character was a short-haired tomboy.

Still, such points could be forgiven by the outstanding performance and delivery of theatrical techniques, such as the human mirror, object imagination, poetry reading, pantomime and synchronized dialogue.

Bravo!

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