Artistry from Indonesia : The Shadow Figures in Wayang Kulit Tales

The bell-like shimmer of the palace gamelan still reverberates in the warm night air, but Wayang Kulit puppeteer Radyo Harsono has already lit a cigarette backstage.

For the last two hours, he’s provided the motion, voice and spirit of a whole company of flat, leather shadow-figures, dramatizing an episode from the Hindu epic “Mahabharata” on a translucent 6 1/2-by-10-foot cloth screen.

Actually, Harsono says that he much prefers the traditional all-night Wayang Kulit performances but that this abridged version is the one he’ll do most often on the “Court Art of Jogjakarta” tour of the United States from late August to early October. (The shortened program opens Tuesday at 8 p.m. in the Los Angeles State and County Arboretum, as part of the Los Angeles Festival, with a repeat on Sept. 11. A 10 p.m.-to-6 a.m. marathon is scheduled for Saturday.)

Harsono worries that the language problem and other cultural barriers may pose difficulties in America and has considered learning a little English to insert in the clown scenes--normally in the vernacular as opposed to the classical Javanese spoken by the noble characters and gods.

At 30, he is younger than most dalangs (puppeteers) and highly thoughtful about the responsibilities of his profession. “It can be explaining something to the society,” he says, “or passing on philosophy, or entertaining. There are many things you have to do, like fasting, as part of your overall need as a person taking on the role of dalang.”

“In the villages,” he explains, “people have a strong belief that the dalang can help with non-physical healing. If someone has a baby during a performance, they will make it his godchild, and he is supposed to aid the child’s education.” Harsono has two godchildren of this sort.

Audiences in Java go to see a particular dalang rather than just a play and are free to watch the performance from either in front of the shadow-screen or backstage, where they can appreciate how he manipulates, on rods, dozens of elaborately painted and incised puppets while also speaking, singing, supplying sound-effects and cuing the gamelan.

Since there isn’t a set script, the dalang must also be able to improvise within traditional performing conventions--and Harsono lists “knowledge of music, dance, the visual arts, the vocal arts, literature and philosophy” as necessary for success in this career.

“The main thing is to concentrate beforehand on the story,” he says--”on how you want it to go.” Since he performs up to 20 times a month, there’s also another essential in this vital, 9th-Century performance idiom:

“You have to be healthy,” Harsono says with a laugh. “You have to really guard your health.”