Women in contemporary Indonesian theatre; Issues of representation and participation

Abstract

This article has its origins in a sense of omission in the research I have been conducting over the past few years on modern theatre in Indonesia-that is, theatre in the national language, Indonesian, employing a written script and derived from the model of Western drama. In such research I had not devoted particular attention to issues of gender in presentation and organization of performances, had not sought out the perspectives of female performers. Why this had been the case is a question I explore in the introduction to the paper, a preliminary exploration of the situation of female performers in such theatre through the examples of a small group of women actors. Their stories are presented against a background of observations of interpretations of 'modernity' in Indonesian theatre and society, and of the strictures of currently dominant gender ideology. As explained below, the project begins with an initial assumption of the reduced power and autonomy of women in modern as compared to traditional , regional performance, based on observation of both types of theatre, and contemplation of modernizing processes. The eventual findings, while not contradicting this assumption, at the same time, I hope, also present a more complex, layered, and interesting picture. I cannot claim that my text allows these performers to 'speak with their own voices', in keeping with the agenda of certain feminist studies of women from non-Western or marginalized social backgrounds. For the accounts of their lives and work recorded here represent these performers' response to an initial request from me, and have been shaped by my questions. The women themselves did not ask that their stories be told, nor do they conceive of themselves as a group with perspectives requiring representation. What I hope to do, rather, is to provide for observers and analysts of Indonesian theatre and society some understanding of the rich and varied contribution of women performers to modern theatre practice. At the same time, these stories from the theatre world also reflect very interestingly on the nature of gender construction in Indonesian society, on the impact of dominant ideology, on strategies of response, and the possibility of alternate models of female identity. BKl 151-IV (1995) Downloaded from Brill.com09/15/2023 08:27:08PM via free access Women in Contemporary Indonesian Theatre 571 Introduction-women in traditional performance In earlier years, carrying out research on kethoprak, a popular theatre form performed in Javanese by mixed-sex troupes, I had often watched from the wings with a group of female performers and chatted extensively by day with the women of the troupe. My later writing drew far more extensively on talks with the invariably male troupe leaders and directors, but it did address as an important theme links between conventions of character and scenic portrayal in performance and understandings of gender in Javanese life. These conventions gave expression, I argued, both to dominant ideals and fantasies and to actual ambiguities and tensions in male-female relations; operating within a male-controlled framework they nevertheless afforded women performers, and, by vicarious extension, large crowds of female audience members, a certain space. 1 Glamorous star actresses, meanwhile, commanded adulatory audience attention, relatively high performance fees, and often special conditions within the troupe. By comparison , modern theatre on the whole seemed a much more exclusively male phenomenon-the domain of long-haired, intense young playwright/ directors and actors, with radical political views and artistic philosophies, and audiences of very similar composition, male, youthful, 'counter-cultural'. It was to the playwright/directors that I was introduced when I expressed an interest in teater, modern theatre, and who predominated in conversations with the actors: only rarely was I introduced to the few young women in the group playing female parts. My observations of women's participation in kethoprak appear to concur with evidence of the place of female performers in the traditional Javanese performing arts more generally-a picture of highly circum-scribed, but also well-defined and acknowledged roles. The contribution of the pesindhen, for example, the female singer with the gamelan orchestra, to a shadow-puppet performance, is relatively minor compared to the all-dominating presence of the male puppeteer. But her musical skills and feminine allure are recognized as an essential part of the performance, for which she is highly valued and amply rewarded. As the only women in an all-male troupe, watched by overwhelmingly male audiences, pesindhen are the targets of much sexual innuendo in performance and have a reputation for sexual availability. R. Anderson Sutton suggests a close historical connection between these singers and female dancers who sang and danced with serial male partners at ritual celebrations (forerunners of present-day ledhek) who in turn recall a female figure in the ancient courts of Java attributed magical powers of fertility. In the contemporary image of the pesindhen, sitting demurely immobile in her place among the gamelan instruments, subject to joking remarks and advice on her behaviour and deportment from the dalang, the sense of