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Reviewed by:
  • Indonesian Postcolonial Theatre: Spectral Genealogies and Absent Faces
  • Kirstin Pauka
Indonesian Postcolonial Theatre: Spectral Genealogies and Absent Faces. By Evan D. Winet. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Hardcover £55/$85. 264 pages.

Winet provides an analysis of theatrical histories in Indonesia's capital city Batavia/Jakarta as representative of Indonesian postmodern theatre, based on the premise that the "postcolonial metropole metonymizes the nation as that space where the organismic metaphor is experienced in its greatest intensity and contradiction” (73). Winet explores the historiography of theatrical performances from colonial Batavia to postcolonial and contemporary Jakarta. To illuminate and contest the complex and often conflicting historical narratives of nation-building emanating from the capital through its dramatic output, he provides interesting and well-chosen, if sometimes eclectic, examples ranging from the 1619 performance of Hamlet in the depots of the VOC (Dutch East Indies Company) to well-known works from the early anticolonial and nationalist Indonesian dramatic literary canon, to contemporary feminist Muslim plays. Far from being restricted to a Native-versus-Western dichotomy, Winet provides a nuanced look at the role of mestizo and Chinese-Batavian artistic endeavors and their often-overlooked role in the development of subsequent theatrical genres and movements.

In addition to a discussion of actual play scripts, he provides a wider framework for the understanding of Indonesian theatre movements. A valuable context for the analysis of the socio-political relevance of theatre productions in the postindependence era is outlined by a discussion of theatrical spaces in Jakarta, most notable the Shouwburg / Gedung Kesenian Jakarta (GKJ, Jakarta Arthouse) and the Jakarta Art Center at Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM), both uneasy and shifting sites of negotiating the complexities of Indonesian national identity. Similar issues are illuminated against the background of various theories on actor training as they emerged within the works of the most prominent postindependence theatre groups and directors. Here the author's discussion of amateur versus professional theatre is especially relevant, as this dichotomy is compared and contrasted to its earlier permutation during the colonial period. Finally, the author highlights the most recent trajectories in Indonesian postcolonial theatre productions of the "era reformasi,” or Post-Suharto period, which he finds, unsurprisingly, to still be grappling with the legacies of colonialism, a lingering problematic indebtedness to Western theatrical models, multiple frayed and distorted historical narratives, and, most prominently, three decades of "New Order” oppression under the Suharto regime.

Overall, Winet's work has much strength in the detail and analysis of plays and productions, and he has to be commended on making the theatrical productions and movements of postcolonial Jakarta easily accessible to a readership from various [End Page 168] backgrounds and with different levels of familiarity with Indonesia's political and theatrical history.

Kirstin Pauka
University of Hawaii at Manoa
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