Wayang Golek
Childhood In The Thirties
On the evening before Chinese New Year the Wayang Golek (puppet show) was performed in the front gallery of the country house. No need for announcement as everybody knew it by the preparations of the simple open air stage, that was a big long banana trunk horizontally placed where the puppets (wayang) were stuck on it. Who didn’t know, knew, heard it as the gamelan started playing, as church bells tolling.
It was heard, carried far away to distant villages in the quiet, stillness of the night across woods and rice fields without loudspeakers – fortunately they’re not yet invented – and so sounds natural, enchanting, mellow.
The village people just sat on the ground or on a very low wooden stool or stood. You could eat roasted groundnuts, or almost burnt rice cake and drink warm bandrek a gingerly drink or sekoteng. Oil lamps of vendors like candles decorated the environment. You could fall asleep or leave earlier. Children even babies that were taken along by mothers were welcome. No one would take offence.
We, his grandchildren were sitting on the steps just before the Dalang (puppeteer). I often urged him to have the puppets fight as I couldn’t follow him. But it were the people who enjoyed, watched the show, not the guests or my uncles and aunts, while the show was performed especially for them.
There was nothing stilted, it doesn’t matter if you came too late, since you never would come too late. Who doesn’t know Harjuna, the invincible warrior, the handsome women charmer, Gatot Kaca who knows beforehand that he would be sacrificed and bravely went to face his destiny, Semiaji the Pandawa king who refused to enter heaven because he had to abandon his dog. Of Karna who kneeled before his foster father, a poor old driver, on the occasion of his coronation in royal attire.
Of Bishma who sacrificed, vowing not to claim the throne as crown prince and never marry to ascertain to have no descendents, granting the demands of his father’s second wife, should his father wish to marry her. On the occasion of his downfall, he bravely disclosed his secret how to conquer him to his foes and told them the woman he wouldn’t fight. Only she could overcome him if they ever wish to overcome him. As he fell, dying as on a couch of arrows stuck in his body of this woman, he asked for water. He rejected all the water offered him. He just wanted to drink water as only a hero could provide it. Harjuna shot an arrow in the earth and water spurted and he drank.
Carried away, I hardly can stop telling, moreover so the Dalang: Of Nala and Damayanti so rich in imagination, fancy and every hero, Dorna, Bima, Suyudana, more than a hundred, each has his fascinating tale or story.
And it was interwoven with appearances on the stage of our folk’s jesters, Cepot, Gareng, Petruk and Semar, their wise father, so fresh as a refreshing breeze. They talked to the audience and the audience talked to them and cheered. Captivating aria’s of pesindens as lovely as the Lorelei were sung as intermissions especially appreciated by the male audience.
In the hands of the Dalang, the wayangs come to life, you don’t see him though he is so obvious, only the wayang. They seem so real, living. You saw them dancing, limping, or walking proudly, defiantly, kneeling and making the sembah (with hands in prayer and kneeling), you heard men, women talking, laughing, crying, thundering, hoarse, high, with all the defects like stuttering, hiss, nasal, or unable to say “rrrr”, you could surmise that one was toothless, another had a hare lip, … You could almost feel a deadly blow of a hero striking his foe as stressed by the gong and his kecrek (a device that sounds “crek” when tread on it) that the earth seems trembling, shaking, collapsing.
They never cheered, saw the Dalang, he didn’t exist except the wayangs and that was the greatest honor.
It isn’t a wonder that the people could stand the show for the whole night.
But despite so much charm, beauty, wisdom, … which I didn’t understand, couldn’t appreciate, I sought my delight in my bed.
See it live in You Tube: chewginhoa, Wayang Golek.
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