M. Cohen on the Origin of the Komedie Stamboelpopular Culture, Colonial Society, and the Parsi Theatre Movement
M. Cohen On the origin of the Komedie StamboelPopular culture, colonial society, and the Parsi theatre movement In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 157 (2001), no: 2, Leiden, 313-357 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl Downloaded from Brill.com10/10/2021 12:19:15AM via free access MATTHEW ISAAC COHEN On the Origin of the Komedie Stamboel Popular Culture, Colonial Society, and the Parsi Theatre Movement Introduction . The Komedie Stamboel, also known as the Malay Opera, occupies a prom- inent place in Indonesia's cultural history.1 lts emergence in 1891 has been characterized as a 'landmark' in the development of modern popular theatre (Teeuw 1979:207). The theatre later contributed greatly to the birth of Indo- nesian contemporary theatre and film2 and played a formative role in mod- ern political discourse and representation (see Anderson 1996:36-7). The Komedie Stamboel has been celebrated as one of the most significant 'artistic achievements' of the Eurasian population of colonial Java (see Van der Veur 1968a), but also damned for its deleterious influence on Java's classical and 1 This article was written while a postdoctoral research fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (DAS). It was presented in part as lectures at KAS and the Fifth International Humanities Symposium, Gadjah Mada University, in 1998.1 would like to thank all the particip- ants in the research seminar, 'Popular theatres of Indonesia', Department of Southeast Asian and Oceanic Languages and Cultures, Leiden University, where I developed some of the ideas pre- sented here, as well as Kathryn Hansen, Rakesh Solomon, Catherine Diamond, Surapone Virulrak, Hanne de Bruin, and two anonymous BKI reviewers for their comments.
[Show full text]