Outside its ‘classic’ forms, little is known in the West about the theatre of Indonesia. The colonial ‘heritage’ proved largely sterile, and the more fruitful recent developments of the past few decades have been dominated by attempts to integrate the indigenous tradition with contemporary problems and needs. Eugène van Erven has spent several years exploring new theatrical movements and activities in the Pacific region, and earlier results of his studies appeared in NTQ 10 (1987), on the People's Theatre Network of the Philippines. Here, he introduces the work of the two leading theatre-of-liberation companies in Indonesia, Teater Arena and Teater Dinasti, and analyzes their contrasting approaches to the integration of ‘theatre-of-liberation’ techniques with distinctively Indonesian social, religious, and theatrical traditions. Eugène van Erven also contributed a study of recent political theatre in Spain to NTQ 13 (1988), and has recently taken up a post lecturing in English at the University of Utrecht.