1 For more on this history, see Harvey, Barbara S., ‘South Sulawesi: Puppets and patriots’, in Regional dynamics of the Indonesian revolution: Unity from diversity, ed. Kahin, Audrey R. (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1985), pp. 207–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Boland, B.J., The struggle of Islam in modern Indonesia (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), pp. 54–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Syariff, Fahmi, ‘Ekologi teater di Sulawesi Selatan’ [The theatre ecology of South Sulawesi], in Perkembangan kesenian di Sulawesi Selatan [The development of the arts in South Sulawesi], ed. Effendy, Ridwan and Rojak, Abdul (Ujung Pandang: Intisari and Dewan Kesenian Sulawesi Selatan, 1999), p. 31Google Scholar.

3 Rachman Arge, ‘Pak Direktur’ (manuscript, 1963), p. 15. The Indonesian reads: ‘Kini aku bentji Bapa seperti aku bentji pendjadjahan, seperti aku bentji golongan Bapa jang menjelewengkan arti revolusi, jang menjelewengkan arti sedjarah, jang menyelewengkan arti rakjat!’

4 Ibid, p. 1. ‘Kita sama tjinta revolusi, karenanja kita sama tjinta aparat pengendalinja. Tapi kenjataan bahwa revolusi mahsutji ini banjak-banjak disalahgunakan aparat-aparat ini, kita lantas lantjarkan kritik. Bukan lantaran bentji, tapi peletakan kembali mentalitas dan personalitas pada tempat sebenarnja, pada kesadaran revolusi itu sendiri, pada keutuhan potensi nasional jang dilandasi tjinta. Untuk semua itulah tjerita ini dibikin.’

5 Nasakom was an acronym for Nationalism, Agama (Religion) and Communism. This was President Sukarno's formulation, an attempt to weld together what he saw to be the three major currents of Indonesian society and politics of the time. Cultural organisations such as the nationalist party-aligned LKN (Lembaga Kesenian Nasional or National Arts Institute), the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party)-aligned Lekra, and the traditionalist Muslim party (Nahdlatul Ulama)-aligned Lesbumi were theoretically supposed to work together for the good of the nation.

6 According to the PKI-affiliated daily Harian Rakjat only a handful of the attendees, including Aspar Paturusi, a key figure in Makassar theatre in the 1970s and 1980s, were willing to sign a letter supporting the Manifesto. Members of the local branches of several national organisations, Lekra (Lembaga Kebudajaan Rakjat, Institute of People's Culture), Lesbi (Lembaga Seni Budaja Indonesia, the Indonesian Institute of Art and Culture and aligned with the leftist party, Partindo) and Lesbumi (Lembaga Seni Budaja Muslim Indonesia, Indonesian Muslim Institute of Art and Culture) refused to sign (‘“Manifes kebudajaan” diganjang di Makassar: Kaum “Manifes” mau revisi Manipol’ [The ‘Cultural Manifesto’ is crushed in Makassar: ‘Manifesto’ supporters want to revise Manipol], Harian Rakjat [People's Daily], 26 Jan. 1964, p. 2).

However, a rather different account appears in Aspar Paturusi's 1976 novel Arus (The Current). Here, two characters discuss the cultural tensions and events of the mid-1960s and one argues that Arge and others did sign statements of support for the Manifesto and that in February 1964, Arge attended the KKPs-I (Konperensi Karyawan Pengarang seluruh-Indonesia, The All-Indonesia Writing Employees' Conference), which was organised by Manifesto supporters and others with military backing. Subsequently, he agreed to become head of the local Lesbumi branch. Further, Arge is reported as having agreed to help Lesbumi mount a play, Tanah dan hati manusia (Land and the human heart) at the National Farmers' meeting in August 1965 to upstage a Lekra production also scheduled for the same occasion. Paturusi, Aspar, Arus (Ujung Pandang: Bhakti Baru, 1976, pp. 133–5)Google Scholar. These two accounts suggest a complicated, fluid pattern of relations between many theatre workers and the cultural organisations then disputing the terrain of national cultural production, one in which statements of solidarity and actual alignments were subject to rapid change.

7 HSBI was the Himpunan Seni Budaya Islam (Association of Islamic Art and Culture), ISBM was the Ikatan Seni Budaya Muhammadiyah (Muhammadiyah Network for Art and Culture), and Laksmi was the Lembaga Seniman Muslim Indonesia (Institute of Indonesian Muslim Artists — aligned with the Partai Sarekat Islam Indonesia).

8 Syariff, ‘Ekologi teater’, pp. 36–7.

9 Their levels of activity are still not clear, however. Aside from Arge's play and his later connection to the Lesbumi productions mentioned above, Lekra's Makassar branch was reported to have performed at least three plays in the early 1960s: Bachtiar Siagian's Buih dan kasih (Foam and love) (‘Kegiatan: Lekra Makassar’ [Activities: Lekra Makassar], Zaman Baru [New Age], 30 May 1960, pp. 7–8); Siagian's Sangkar madu (Gilded cage) for a May Day 1962 celebration, Utuy Tatang Sontani's Sajang ada orang lain (A pity there's someone else) and a number of other plays (see Lekra's own regional report, ‘Laporan Sulselra’ [Report from South and Southeast Sulawesi], 10 Mar. 1962, Harian Rakjat, p. 3).

10 Sutton, R. Anderson, Calling back the spirit: Music, dance, and cultural politics in lowland South Sulawesi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), ch. 3, esp. pp. 59–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Syariff, ‘Ekologi teater’, pp. 42–7, 65–6, 79–85.

12 Feith, Herbert, The decline of constitutional democracy in Indonesia (Ithaca, NY.: Cornell University Press, 1962), pp. 100–3, 109–14Google Scholar.

13 Teeuw, A., ‘Javanistic tendencies in recent Indonesian literature’, Tenggara: Journal of Southeast Asian Literature, 21–22 (1988): 8Google Scholar.

14 Harvey, ‘South Sulawesi’, p. 209.

15 See Velthoen, Ester, ‘Hutan and kota: Contested visions of the nation-state in Southern Sulawesi in the 1950s’, in Indonesia in transition: Rethinking ‘civil society’, ‘region’, and ‘crisis’, ed. Samuel, Hanneman and Nordholt, Henk Schulte (Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar, 2004), pp. 154–5Google Scholar.

16 Sutton, Calling back the spirit, pp. 50–64.

17 To get some sense of these intellectuals' feeling of belonging to an international literary and arts community, read Beb Vuyk, ‘A weekend with Richard Wright’, trans. Keith Foulcher; ed. and with an introduction by Roberts, Brian Russell and Foulcher, Keith, PMLA, 126, 3 (May 2011): 798–812Google Scholar.

18 Foulcher, Keith, ‘Literature, cultural politics, and the Indonesian revolution’, in Text/Politics in island Southeast Asia: Essays in interpretation, ed. Roskies, D.M. (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press Monographs in International Studies, No. 91, 1993), pp. 236–47Google Scholar.

19 Paturusi, Arus, pp. 73, 153–4.

20 Williams, Raymond, The politics of modernism: Against the new conformists (London: Verso, 1989)Google Scholar.

21 See Syariff, ‘Ekologi teater’, pp. 44–5, 65.

22 See Rendra, W.S., Mempertimbangkan tradisi [Considering tradition] (Jakarta: Gramedia, 1983)Google Scholar.

23 A. Teeuw makes a similar argument about the early poetry of Rendra and Ajip Rosidi. See Teeuw, A., Modern Indonesian literature, vol. II (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff and KITLV, 1979), pp. 5–10Google Scholar.

24 For evidence of this, see Kardjo, Wing, ‘Potret W.S. Rendra dalam wawantjara’ [A portrait of W.S. Rendra in an interview], Budaya Jaya, 5 (Oct. 1968): 288–92Google Scholar.

25 Wijaya, Putu, Ngeh: Kumpulan esai [Ngeh: A collection of essays](Jakarta: Pustaka Firdaus, 1997), pp. 343–9Google Scholar.

26 Mohamad, Goenawan, Seks, sastra, kita [Sex, literature, and us] (Jakarta: Sinar Harapan, 1980), pp. 91–142Google Scholar.

27 Arge, Rachman, ‘Kenapa kita masih berteater?’ [Why are we still doing theatre?], Budaya Jaya, 100 (Sept. 1976): 540–4Google Scholar.

28 Paturusi, Aspar, ‘Pergumulan ide dalam konsep teater’ [Wrestling with ideas in our theatrical concepts], in Pertemuan Teater 80 [Theatre Summit ‘80], ed. Simhombing, Wahyu, Sukirnanto, Slamet, and Ikranegara (Jakarta: Dewan Kesenian Jakarta, 1980), pp. 134–5Google Scholar.

29 See ‘Opa di akhir tahun’ [Opa at year's end], Tempo, 7 Feb. 1976, p. 22. Ironically, and indicative of the tensions between the centre and the regions in national culture, and of the predominance of ‘universal humanism’ in criticism of the arts, the Tempo reviewer for the performances at the National Theatre Festival, despite the Festival's theme, faulted Opa and Teater Makassar not only for being technically less advanced than Jakarta groups, but also for addressing contemporary local (Makassar) problems too much at the expense of more general problems and issues. Teater Makassar seemed caught in the middle of a crossfire between different expectations about what national theatre should be.

30 Field notes, 1 and 3 Aug. 2001.

31 Syariff, ‘Ekologi teater’, p. 52.

32 Arge, ‘Kenapa kita masih berteater?’: 43.

33 Syariff, ‘Ekologi teater’, pp. 49–50.

34 Sukatanya, Yudhistira, Profil 5 teater di Makassar: Kandil Teater Latamaosandi, Sanggar Merah Putih Makassar, Rombongon Sandiwara Petta Puang, Kelompok Study Sastra & Teater (Kosaster) Unhas, Teater Kita Makassar (Makassar: Yayasan Kesenian Sulawesi Selatan, 2001), pp. 2–18Google Scholar. This chapter details the history and works of Teater Latamaosandi, and also provides some information on Teater Poseidon. Fahmi Syariff once noted in a conversation (field notes, 3 Aug. 2001) that Latamaosandi had not normally used local colour elements in these early years.

35 Paturusi, Aspar, ‘Teater Indonesia panggung dialog tradisi dan masa kini?’ [Indonesian theatre as the stage for the dialogue of tradition and the present], in Menengok tradisi: Sebuah alternatif bagi teater modern [Looking at tradition: An alternative for modern theatre], ed. Malaon, Tuti Indra, Malna, Afrizal and Dwi, Bambang (Jakarta: Dewan Kesenian Jakarta and Lembaga Studi dan Riset Mahabodhi Indonesia, 1986), pp. 67–8Google Scholar.

36 See Paturusi, ‘Pergumulan ide’, pp. 136–7, for some of the considerations in staging this scene.

37 Arge, Rachman, ‘I Tolok’, in Lima naskah drama pilihan [Five selected plays], ed. Effendy, Ridwan (Makassar: Dewan Kesenian Sulawesi Selatan dan Lembaga Penerbitan Universitas Hasanuddin), pp. 1–48Google Scholar.

38 Arge, ‘Kenapa kita masih berteater?’, p. 538.

39 Paturusi, ‘Pergumulan ide’, pp. 130, 134–8.

40 Paturusi, ‘Teater Indonesia panggung dialog’, p. 70.

41 Field notes, 3 Aug. 2001.

42 Commenting on an early, exceptional Teater Latamaosandi production, using his own script based on the traditional legend Datu Museng dan Maipa Deapati, Fahmi Syariff attributed its spectacular success in Makassar and several other regional cities where it was performed to his reading of the story as the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ of South Sulawesi as well as to the beautiful Malay used in the script (field notes, 3 Aug. 2001).

43 Expectations that performances from each region would be heavily coloured by elements of each region's local culture caused the inclusion of such elements to become a virtual necessity at many national-level dance and theatre festivals in the late 1980s and 1990s. Examples of this can be found in the 1996 Festival Tarian Rakyat Nusantara (Festival of Nusantara popular dance) described by Sutton in Calling back the spirit, pp. 232–3, and in the 1996 initiative of the Indonesian Directorate of Arts in the Ministry of Education and Culture to hold a modern theatre festival that would serve as a showcase for modern Indonesian theatre with its roots in local elements. For documentation of this latter event see Sosiawan Leak, ‘Eksotisme peta teater Indonesia’ (Exoticism of the map of Indonesian theatre), Suara Merdeka, 12 Oct. 1996; and Priyantoro Oemar, ‘Teater Indonesia dalam kebingungan seorang Kaspar’ (Theatre Indonesia in the confusion of Kaspar), Republika, 12 Oct. 1996.

44 Aspar Paturusi, ‘Perahu Nuh II’, manuscript, 1978.

45 Aspar once told me in a conversation at Taman Ismail Marzuki that he felt Indonesians are too dependent upon looking for a leader to express their aspirations. In the same conversation, he also stressed that ideas could spread like wildfire in a society, and that this notion led to his use of ideas articulated in dialogue initiating sudden rapid changes in plot and direction (field notes, 16 Dec. 1987).

46 Field notes, 20 Dec. 1987.

47 Paturusi, ‘Teater Indonesia panggung dialog’, p. 70.

48 Field notes, 1, 3 and 6 Aug. 2001.

49 Field notes, 3 Aug. 2001.

50 Arge, ‘Kenapa kita masih berteater?’, p. 542; Paturusi, ‘Pergumulan ide’, pp. 134–5; Syariff, ‘Ekologi teater’, p. 53.

51 Paturusi, ‘Pergumulan ide’, p. 138; Paturusi, ‘Teater Indonesia panggung dialog’, pp. 68–9; Syariff, ‘Ekologi teater’, p. 64.

52 Syariff, ‘Ekologi teater’, pp. 46–7; Arge, ‘Kenapa kita masih berteater?’, p. 543.

53 Arge, ‘Kenapa kita masih berteater?’, p. 543; Yudhistira Sukatanya, field notes, 13 Feb. 1988.

54 See Kibar, 8 Aug. 1986, p. 21. There seems to be little scholarship readily available to researchers outside South Sulawesi on kondo buleng. Holt, Claire, in Dance quest in Celebes (Les Archives Internationales de la Danse: Paris, 1939, pp. 20–1)Google Scholar, documents one performance viewed during her voyage through the Netherlands East Indies in 1938. She describes the action as that of a dance in which one performer, dressed as a white heron and mimicking the movements of such a bird, is stalked and eventually shot by a comical, limping hunter figure. The heron, however, seems to rise again at play's end, signalling a sort of rebirth. Holt summarises the production in the following way:

Friends from the theatre community in Makassar have claimed the play was originally a veiled burlesque of the antagonism between Dutch colonisers and locals (field notes, 1 Aug. 2001). A video of a kondo buleng performance in a more recent cultural festival generously provided by Ibu Nurhayati Rahman shows the same sort of pantomime as described by Holt, with a number of comical scenes that reflect a loosely structured, partially improvised kind of folk drama. Thus, the kondo buleng ‘style’ referred to above would seem to consist of an imaginative allegory fleshed out in a loose, comical plot. Jamaluddin Latief's Drama kondobuleng dalam cerita: Mimpi [Kondobuleng drama in a story: The dream] (manuscript, 1986) gives some indication of how this revival tried to modernise the form. A white heron, a kondo buleng, was indeed present in the play and acted as a voice of conscience to a poor fisherman who dreams he is a ‘raja’ (king) and proceeds to rule the dream kingdom in an authoritarian and arbitrary manner, ordering his palace guards to rob the people, drinking all day, and killing anyone of whom he is suspicious or with whom he is displeased. There is much comedy involved, but also, clear critical allegorical references to the New Order regime's corruption, accumulation by dispossession, mystical beliefs, and violence. The kondo buleng warns the peasant-turned-raja of coming social and environmental disaster, and criticises what she sees as the prevailing rampant materialism.

55 Sukatanya, Profil 5 teater, pp. 33–4.

56 Syariff, ‘Ekologi teater’, p. 66.

57 Field notes, 3 Aug. 2001.

58 Sutton, Calling back the spirit, p. 45.

59 Hall, D.G.E., A history of Southeast Asia (London: Macmillan, 1970), pp. 323–7Google Scholar; Reid, Anthony, Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, 1450–1680: Expansion and crisis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 320–2Google Scholar.

60 Sukatanya, Yudhistira, ‘To'Do'puli’, in Lima naskah drama pilihan, p. 246Google Scholar. ‘Perjuangan mempertahankan hidup tidak dengan mengorbankan orang lain, menghalalkan segala cara. Apalagi menjual bangsa dan Negara kepada bangsa asing. Ingat, ayah, Belanda-belanda itu datang dengan satu maksud, menguasai perdagangan, perekonomian kemudian menguasai pemerintahan … Orang yang cinta kemerdekaan bangsanya tentu tak sudi tunduk pada kehendak bangsa asing … Ayah, kita harus sejak awal mengusir kaum kolonial itu … Ayah kita tak boleh menjual tanah air ini sejengkelpun kepada bangsa asing. Kita bisa belajar dari sejarah tentang bahayanya. Kita tidak boleh membantu penjajah itu.’

61 Syariff, Fahmi, ‘Karaeng Pattingaloang’, in Syariff, Fahmi, Teropong dan meriam [Telescopes and Cannons] (Makassar: Hasanuddin University Press, 2005), pp. 1–72Google Scholar.

62 Fahmi Syariff's play is based on a short story by Ecip, S. Sinansari, ‘Menghadap [Facing] Karaeng Pattingalloang’, in Ecip, S. Sinansari, Menghadap Karaeng Pattingalloang (Ujung Pandang: P.T. Berita Utama, 1983), pp. 38–49Google Scholar.

63 Syariff, ‘Karaeng Pattingaloang’, pp. 7, 31, 52, 58, 70.

64 Bodden, Michael H., ‘Satuan-satuan kecil and uncomfortable improvisations in the late night of the New Order: Democratization, postmodernism, and postcoloniality’, in Clearing a space: Postcolonial readings of modern Indonesian literature, ed. Foulcher, Keith and Day, Tony (Leiden: KITLV, 2002), pp. 300–2Google Scholar.

65 Derks, Will, 2002, ‘Sastra pedalaman: Local and regional literary centres in Indonesia’, in Clearing a space, pp. 325–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 Anne Booth, ‘Will Indonesia break up?’, Inside Indonesia, 59 (July–Sept. 1999): 5–6; Buising, Trevor, ‘A century of decentralization’, Inside Indonesia, 63 (July–Sept. 2000), pp. 8–9Google Scholar.

67 Syariff, ‘Ekologi teater’, p. 67.

68 Syariff, ‘Ekologi teater’, p. 65. ‘Tidak selalu yang di Jakarta atau kota lain di Jawa itu berkualitas tinggi. Jakarta atau yang lainnya jangan dijadikan kiblat. Perteateran tidak boleh memakai sistem politik sentralisasi dan sebagainya.’

69 ‘… mendukung upaya menumbuh-suburkan pemikiran bahwa sastra Indonesia juga ada tersebar di kepuluauan. Mudah-mudahan jadi salah satu puncak sastra lokal, yang menasional.’ Palisuri, H. Udhin, ‘Passili’, in Sastra kepulauan: Antologi, ed. Prasasti, Aliem et al. (Makassar: Dewan Kesenian Sulawesi Selatan, 1999), p. iGoogle Scholar.

70 Arge, ‘Kenapa kita masih berteater?’, pp. 542–4.

71 Halim HD and BLU, ‘Makassar Arts Forum: Desentralisasi kue seni’ [Makassar Arts Forum: decentralization of the arts pie], Gamma, 19 Sept. 1999, p. 85; Ali Samad, ‘Kesenian 99 (KIU-KIU)’, Makassar Arts Forum '99 (Art '99), p. 3; Sudirman H.N., ‘Makassar Arts Forum '99: Pelembagaan keberagaman dan desentralisasi kesenian’ (Makassar Arts Forum: Institutionalising arts diversity and decentralization), Fajar, 19 Sept. 1999. This idea was also communicated by a local NGO staff member involved in organising the festival (Aswin Amin, personal communication, 2 Sept. 1999).

72 Samad, ‘Kesenian 99’, p. 3.

73 Field notes, 6 Aug. 2001.

74 This particular turn to ‘ritual’ as a foundation for performance may be partially attributed to the work of Halilintar Lathief and his collaborators who, like several counterparts in Java during the 1980s and 1990s, intentionally incorporated relatively unrestrained and unaestheticised trance and other kinds of spiritual/sacral rituals into modern performances to create rather postmodern pastiches that at the same time both corresponded to and challenged the ways in which official government rhetoric called for the preservation of ‘traditional’ culture and values. This influence may have been particularly strong for Asia Ramli Prapanca and Teater Kita Makassar since both Prapanca and his close friend and collaborator, Is Hakim, have been involved with Lathief's group. However, the urge to incorporate elements of ritual went beyond Teater Kita, as was evident from some of Sanggar Merah Putih's productions under the direction of Arman Dewarti in the late 1990s, as well as in the performance art of Firman Jamil. For more on Halilintar Lathief, see Sutton, Calling back the spirit, pp. 69–103.

75 Field notes, 4 and 6 Aug. 2001. The tradition of Western-style naturalistic or absurdist theatre has a long history in Makassar as this article has demonstrated. Thus, Prapanca's statement may reflect the difficulties some Makassar theatre workers have in adapting to the newer methods of performance construction based on abstract concepts, lack of overarching linear narrative, and improvisational movements explored during practices. In this style of theatre, drawing on local traditions of movement and expression, which may in part be familiar to participants, may be a necessity. However, it is important to keep in mind that many South Sulawesians may only be familiar with traditional genres as adapted and repackaged by modernising artists such as Andi Nurhani Sappada. See Sutton, Calling back the spirit, especially chs. 3, 4, and 8 for a discussion of the way in which traditions of performance in South Sulawesi have been transformed over the past several decades.

76 Like Jamaluddin Latief's Kondobuleng dalam cerita: Mimpi, Petta Puang makes use of kondo buleng in the sense of adapting an imaginative, free-flowing kind of story interlaced with ample comedic elements. A number of Makassar arts figures made this comparison during a conversation in mid-2001 (Simon Abdul Murad, Ridwan Effendy, and Firman Jamil, field notes, 1 Aug. 2001).

77 Field notes, 7 Aug. 2001.

78 The chief examples would be the work of the Yogyakarta group, Teater Gardanalla, and, occasionally, that of the similarly Yogyakarta-based Teater Garasi. The trend toward once again using dialogue and linear story-based scripts, as opposed to the more symbolic, abstract, and non-linear performance pieces of the 1990s, could also be seen in several feminist plays by Jakarta women's groups and theatre workers, as well as the numerous monologue festivals held in recent years.

79 Field notes, 14 July 2004.

80 Much of this information on these recent works by Sanggar Merah Putih can be found at Arifin Manggau, ‘Sanggar Merah Putih: Biografi’, Kelola website, http://www.kelola.or.id/database/theatre/list/&alph=p_t (last accessed 9 Nov. 2011).

81 Field notes, Shinta Febriani, 16 July 2004.

82 Shinta Febriani, personal communication, 16 July 2004.

83 Hatley, Barbara, ‘Subverting the stereotypes: Women performers contest gender images, old and new’, Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs, 41, 2 (2007): 196Google Scholar.

84 This emphasis on identifying skilled actors indicated an interest in a more dialogue and textually-based style of acting and performance that echoes the development of Petta Puang and Sanggar Merah Putih Makassar. Shinta explained that the Festival Kala Monolog was intended to identify actors in Makassar, and to give them a chance to forge their acting skills and demonstrate their quality, for instance in their text-based performance, Waiting for Godot (Kala Teater, facebook contact, 27 Mar. 2011 and 22 Sept. 2011; Shinta Febriany, email communication, 2 Dec. 2011).