The Dalang

The Dalang or Puppet Master is a multi-talented artisan and storyteller whose captivating tales from the Mahabharata, India's longest epic, are told from a Javanese perspective. While the Mahabharata portrays an endless struggle between good and evil, wayang kulit shadow puppets are more immediately symbolic of the inner struggle between alusand kasar - base animal passion and detached, effortless self-control.

The Javanese believe mankind exists in a predetermined cosmos where the sacred and the profane are parts of an integrated whole, a viewpoint expressed in the mythological wayang plays of East Java. The Dalang draws these Indonesianized plays from the Mahabharata stories in which cousins - the five Pandawa and the one hundred Kurawa - fall out over land and eventually face each other in a great preordained cosmic battle.

Prelude

Dusk descends on the village. The last rays of the equatorial sun shines on the palm leaves above. The world is a contrast of greens: the rice fields are a pale green against darker green bamboo and mango trees, and every shade of green reflects in the milky luminescence of the pond. A young woman sings softly in a high-pitched voice as she bathes in the water.

From the river come the cries of the children: "Put me on your shoulders!" "Run, run!" "Hai, hai, hai!" An old woman trudges along the the path from the Tjibanteng Garden with a bunch of green bananas on her head. From somewhere in the bamboo thicket the call of Prekutut bird cries shrilly at the sunset: "Prekut-tut-tut-tut!"

A breeze from the distant Java Sea crackles the banana leaves. A young man in the audience stares at the stars and the incomprehensible sky and feels a sudden wave of loneliness wash over him. Bima must feel this way as he lays there poisoned and helpless staring up at this very same sky. The Dalang prepares...