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Raja Edepus, And: Making of “Raja Edepus.” Lynda Paul

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Raja Edepus, And: Making of “Raja Edepus.” Lynda Paul Raja Edepus, and: Making of “Raja Edepus.” Lynda Paul Asian Music, Volume 42, Number 1, Winter/Spring 2011, pp. 141-145 (Article) Published by University of Texas Press For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/amu/summary/v042/42.1.paul.html Access Provided by Yale University Library at 02/05/11 2:36AM GMT Recording Reviews Raja Edepus. Directed and produced by William Maranda. DVD. 92 min- utes. Vancouver BC: Villon Films, 2009. Available from http://www.villon! lms .com. Making of “Raja Edepus.” Directed and produced by William Maranda. DVD. 27 minutes. Vancouver BC: Villon Films, 2008. Available from http://www .villon! lms.com. If, at ! rst glance, ancient Greek tragedy and contemporary Balinese dance- drama seem unlikely theatrical companions, the production Raja Edepus puts any such doubts to rest. Produced by William Maranda with artistic direction by Nyoman Wenten, Raja Edepus is a compelling Balinese rendering of the ancient Sophocles drama, Oedipus Rex. Created for live performance at the Bali Arts Festival in 2006, Raja Edepus is now available to a wider public through two DVDs: one, a recording of the show, and the other, a documentary about the performance’s preparation. " e live production fuses musical and dramatic techniques used in contem- porary Balinese theater with techniques thought to have been used in ancient Greek theater. As Maranda describes on the Making of “Raja Edepus” DVD, the two types of theater—though separated by 2500 years and much of the earth— have signi! cant features in common. Maranda explains that he was inspired to initiate this project a# er attending performances of the Balinese gamelan in residence at the University of British Columbia; he was struck by the fact that Ba- linese theater uses masks—a device familiar to Maranda from his previous work on ancient Greek theater. Masks, in both Balinese and ancient Greek theater, are used to impart information to an audience about the masked character’s persona and ethos (his or her social status, level of a$ uence, personality, etc.). Despite the di% erent religions, histories, and cultures of the ancient Greeks and the Ba- linese, Maranda points out that their world- views are remarkably compatible: broadly speaking, both societies believe in the power of fate, and in a panoply of divinities involved in its orchestration. And indeed, although Maranda does not mention this, both societies also use theater to articulate these world- views, imbuing theatrical performance (especially in ritual settings) with the power to reveal cosmological truth. © 2011 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819 !"#$%&'%()#*+,-*..#/0-1+-*2'344555*1* *+6,6*!555,7,"580 142 Asian Music: Winter/Spring 2011 " e Making of . DVD, featuring Maranda (both talking to the camera and brie' y conversing with two Balinese artists who worked on Raja Edepus), does not make clear precisely who made each decision during the show’s artistic creation. However, Maranda’s discussion of the creative process—supplemented by photographs and video clips—suggests that he collaborated in signi! cant part with a cadre of expert Balinese performers and designers. It seems that, on Maranda’s initiative, this inter- artistic team of mostly Balinese directors treated the Sophocles play as the show’s basic “script,” which they subsequently infused with Balinese elements in the months leading up to the performance. " e directorial team in' ected Oedipus Rex with a variety of Balinese con- cepts and theatrical devices, some subtle and some more striking. Most notably, they added to the cluster of Sophocles’s speaking roles a large, powerful kecak ensemble and an active, dynamic gamelan. As can clearly be seen on the DVD of the Raja Edepus performance, each of these two ensembles is employed stra- tegically throughout the show, to great dramatic e% ect. " e kecak ensemble in particular seems to ful! ll a variety of important dramatic functions, a few of which I outline here. First, the kecak performers supplement and support the Greek Chorus. Al- though the production clearly di% erentiates the kecak chorus from Sophocles’s Chorus (the two groups wear di% erent costumes, gather in discrete groups for much of their time on stage, and one group recites the text of the Chorus while the other chants kecak syllables), the kecak performers add weight to the Chorus’s commentary. As a crowd of neutral, non- “speaking” performers, the kecak en- semble—physically present throughout the show—seems to bolster the Chorus’s commentary. " ey act as observant and anonymous members of the group, mak- ing the Chorus seem even more “present” as a synecdoche of society. Second, the kecak ensemble (as well as the gamelan) sonically expresses the dramatic pace of the production. " e almost continuous music alerts the audi- ence to the level of dramatic intensity underlying any given character’s speech. " e tempo and texture range from slow and calm to quick and highly agitated, speeding up with each small- scale dramatic climax, and building to a frenzy at the end, when Edepus realizes that he has ful! lled the prophecy. Because of the close relationship between the drama’s pace and the characters’ agitation, the Balinese ensembles seem to embody not only the dramatic structure but also the actors’ emotional subtexts throughout the production. In this way, Raja Edepus’s use of musical tempo and texture to enhance dramatic “mood” clearly bears some similarities to techniques used in Western incidental music and ! lm soundtracks. " e music that they produce, however, is more fully integrated into the drama than most incidental and ! lm music—perhaps not surprising, con- sidering the tightly knit integration of music and dance in most Balinese dance genres, which feature both musicians and dancers constantly responding to the !"#$%&'%()#*+,-*..#/0-1+-*2'344555*1+ *+6,6*!555,7,"580 Reviews 143 other in any given performance. " e kecak performers do not simply provide background soundscape to Raja Edepus; they are staged as part of the diegetic world, visibly taking part in scenes with the Sophocles- derived characters. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the kecak group acts like a physical hu- man current, driving the main actors o% stage, and sweeping them into new posi- tions on the stage. One of the most powerful moments of this kecak- character interaction occurs during the scene in which Edepus, having just spoken with Tiresias, now mistakenly believes that Creon conspired with Tiresias to accuse him falsely of Laius’s murder. He confronts Creon in a fury. As both Edepus and Creon accuse each other of deceit and treason, the enormous kecak crowd splits in two, one side li# ing Edepus onto its shoulders and the other li# ing Creon. " e two crowds, actors on top, circle each other, revolving around the stage slowly and angrily. Edepus and Creon continue to argue. " is dramatic mo- ment, already serious in the original play, is notably intensi! ed by this staging, which employs the kecak chorus to corporeally embody an unnamed powerful force—something simultaneously inside and outside the human world, liter- ally li# ing Edepus and Creon and sweeping them around in repetitive circles of miscomprehending, angry confusion. Is this force the manifestation of an internal, psychic rage? Is it fate? Is it the will of a divinity? Another moment of similar signi! cance occurs when the horri! ed Edepus, fully cognizant for the ! rst time that he has unknowingly committed horri! c crimes, prepares to gouge out his eyes. " e kecak chorus swarms him, surrounds him, and ! nally descends upon him in frenzied chant, concealing him from the audience (at which point, the actor is able to take o% his crown and change into the mask that depicts bloodied eyes). Eventually the kecak crowd disperses so that Edepus may emerge, transformed. " e kecak chorus makes this transformation possible, both symbolically (as they drive him to the realization) and literally (as they hide the actor from the audience). In sum, the kecak performers move the action forward in Raja Edepus, ! gu- ratively and literally. " ey support the Chorus, by virtue of their very presence on stage, and they embody the dramatic pace, through the tempo and texture of their rhythmic chanting. But perhaps their most powerful contribution to this production of Sophocles’s drama takes place during the times when they physically interact with the actors, literally pushing the characters forward. In such instances, the kecak ensemble appears to physically manifest a force stron- ger than humanity. And despite the commanding, authoritative nature of both Edepus and Creon as characters (on the surface, at least), it is ultimately the kecak chorus that reveals them to be vulnerable, and pushes them where destiny has decreed they must go. In this way, the creators make extraordinarily palpable the tension between divinely ordained fate on the one hand, and human “power” (or ultimately, powerlessness) on the other. !"#$%&'%()#*+,-*..#/0-1+-*2'344555*1, *+6,6*!555,7,"580 144 Asian Music: Winter/Spring 2011 Overall, the DVD of the Raja Edepus performance is clear and thorough. Pro- duced with high- quality image and sound, it o% ers the viewer a good sense of the show as a whole. Six di% erent camera angles are used, and the viewer is shown both close- ups (usually of the actors’ faces/masks) and wide shots, displaying the brilliantly choreographed crowds that are a hallmark of this production. " e rhe- torically gi# ed actor- dancers speak Indonesian, which is translated in the (Eng- lish only) subtitles. " e recording seems to show nearly the entire performance, with the exception of four instances, when the scene fades out and a caption ap- pears on a black screen, explaining the current dramatic situation.
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