Historical Dramas

Abstract

Here we may also mention Sanusi Pané’s dramatic writings. There were very few dramas produced in the period under discussion, at least very few of them were printed. This is not the place to discuss why this is so — there may have been individual as well as social reasons for the seeming lack of interest in this field. Sanusi Pané, however, was an exception. We have already discussed Rustam Effendi’s Bebasari, an allegorical drama. Sanusi Pané wrote two dramas in Dutch: Air Langga (name of the famous early Javanese king of the 11th century) and Eenzame Garoedavlucht (Lonely Flight of the Garuda), both of which were published as serials in the magazine Timboel (Emerge), in 1928 and 1930 respectively. The Dutch used in these plays is curious for its pompous and even bombastic tone, but more remarkable is the strong interest in traditional and historical subjects. This same interest is visible in the first Indonesian drama to use Malay after Bebasari. It was written by Muhammad Yamin in 1928 on the occasion of the Djakarta Youth Congress which was to become so famous for the proclamation of the threefold ideal of Indonesian youth. The play, called Ken Angrok dan Ken Dedes, was staged at the Congress and again many times in subsequent years (39 according to the author, in his foreword to the second impression).