Wayang Suket

You want something, then you get it, are you happy? You have obsession, then you have chance to do it, are you excited? You can call me "kampungan" or something, but i have obsession to watch theatre in Gedung Kesenian Jakarta. Lucky me, friend on my CCF class give me free invitation to watch Wayang Suket Theatre Show on a series event Festival Art Summit Indonesia VI 2010, what a moment :D

So, wednesday night October 6, i went to Gedung Kesenian Jakarta. I feel excited with the aura, with the art circumstances, and also feel great to see splendor building, kind of room in the phantom of the opera, hehe.

I love to see something traditional in contemporary, and exactly Wayang Suket showing it :).

At first, i was imagine that i'll see Wayang Show as a common, there's a puppet, mastermind, and traditional music also. But, i saw different thing, more than just usual Wayang Show, and it's great :)

A man, called Slamet Gundono, who has idea of Wayang Suket. He's also become a mastermind of the show. He has consistently preserved and explored the local indigenous and wisdom of wayang with contemporary touch.  He and his Komunitas Wayang Suket present mixed or call it "Gado-gado" style  of conventional performances such as traditional theatres (lenong, ketoprak, makyong), humour, music, and current issues. They put 'politic issue' in their art language and in their style which is blended on the show. There's a joke about our president, parlement, and religion leader, and also offend our religion atmosphere in Indonesia. Beside that,He tell about prophetic story, such as Ibrahim, Sulaeman, Yusuf, etc, with his style in his "gado-gado" way.

Slamet Gundono play anything, include himself, wayang, human (performer) for delivering the stories. Therefore his show feels in absurdity versus reality, modernity versus traditional, and lucidity versus vagueness. But, because his capability in narrating story with songs while playing Ukulele to combine paradoxes with dramatic structure, it's resulting an attractive performance although we barely understand his language, his art language. 

In Art Summit that i watched, They presented a fragment of Serat Centini adapted by Elizabeth D.Inandiak, French Journalist who learn about Indonesian Culture since a long time. She also narrating  the show, so  we hear 4 languages there, Bahasa, English, French, and Java language. The title of the fragment was "Minggatnya Cebolang". The story is about a young naughty man named Cebolang who flee from his parents, Syek Akhadiyat, to roam and find his self-identity. Through this journey of life and moral, he explores human sexuality and ended up with various affairs of many people, including "ronggeng", immaculate widow or even Reog Dancer. A journey filled with lust, but finally it's also the searh for the One (Illahi), especially after Cebolang met the holy hermit who taught him about Dewa Ruci.

The moral of this story, the journey of Cebolang, is that despite the fall in morality, the man, at the end, will find the water of truth.

Great experience to have a chance watching it, which is art become a tool to deliver any messages of goodness, and also the important thing is to entertain all the viewers :)

Wanna go there much more :D

Credit : Sisca for the invitation :) , Slamet Gundono and His Group, and Art Summit Indonesia commitee for the review