A TRANSCULTURAL RE-INTERPRETATION OF SHAKESPEARES’ PLAY: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, AS A CONTEMPORARY PERFORMANCE BASED ON TRADITIONAL BETAWI STYLED THEATRE IN JAKARTA

Abstract

This article is a reflection on how re-interpretations of William Shakespeare’s plays have become part of transcultural articulations in Indonesian theatre. This study will focus on the play A Midsummer Night Dreams performed by the students of the theatre department in the Institut Kesenian Jakarta (IKJ) or Jakarta Institute of The Arts as a sample of transculturalism in the Performing Arts in Indonesia as a sample for the case study. This writer was involved in the artistic process as a choreographer collaborating with the Theater Department Lecturers who directed and designed the play. As IKJ is situated in Jakarta, the play took on the style of Betawi traditional theatre to be adapted as the whole artistic design. The traditional Betawi style itself was adapted from Lenong and Topeng, two distinct forms of theatre passed down from generation to generation as oral traditions. The traditions in the Betawi theatre were then used as a base for re-interpreting and constructing the play intertwining the language and the cultural imagination of Shakespeare and Betawi, in dialogue, movements, set design, music, and performance space. This article was inspired by the questioning of transculturalism itself as argued in the book Gao and Transcultural Chinese Theater among others. In the performing arts sphere, can the performance above in re-interpretation be seen as a transcultural expression therefore an artistic representation, or be seen as cultural identity politics and could be considered appropriation due to influences of the globalisation of cultural, social, and political contexts? To collect the data to answer the questions in mind, this researcher revisited the memories and notes, and documentation of the artistic team and actors from IKJ, to understand their personal experiences in the artistic process and how they understood Shakespeare and Betawi itself through their own empirical journeys.