Presented by Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing

This collection presents seven modern plays by some of Indonesia’s most accomplished dramatists. The earliest work is from the 1930s, when predominantly Westerninfluenced plays were being staged. After Indonesia declared its independence in 1945, urban playwrights began drawing
on indigenous art forms. Under the authoritarian regimes of Presidents Soekarno and Soeharto, the theater arts were harshly censored, but by weaving together traditional and Western performance styles, playwrights defied the nationwide political repression. Four of the plays here were written in recent years, the latest in 2009, and display the experimentation and commitment to social issues that have long characterized Indonesian drama. The playwrights in Islands of Imagination, Volume One, are Rita Matu Mona, Armijn Pané, N. Riantiarno, Ratna Sarumpaet, Iwan Simatupang, Luna Vidya, and Putu Wijaya.

List of Illustrations

Modern Indonesian Plays: An Introduction
Cobina Gillitt, vii
(excerpt from Introduction)
Early twentieth-century national theater in Indonesia, then known as the Dutch East Indies, was largely revolutionary in tone and intent, supporting the end of colonial rule. Productions were urban, performed on proscenium stages, and presented in what would be soon adopted as the Indonesian national language, rather than in one of the country’s 350 local languages. However, by the 1930s, Indonesian theater had shifted its focus away from the independence movement and toward domestic dramas and psychological realism. This modern, Western style was preferred by the first national theater academy, Cine Drama Institut (later renamed Akademi Seni Drama dan Film Indonesia, or ASDRAFI), which opened in the Central Java city of Yogyakarta in 1948, three years after Indonesia proclaimed its independence.
Continue reading “Manoa, vol. 26, no. 2 (2014): Islands of Imagination: Volume One: Modern Indonesian Plays”