Back in Tegal together with Teater Lakon. This Dutch theatre group is touring with "Monyet Loe!" through Indonesia. It's a beautiful visual play wherein lifesize puppets come to life. "Monyet Loe!" talks about deforestation in Sumatra and the threatened liveyhoods of the orangutan living there. The audiences consist mostly of little children aged 4-10 years old. Besides the play they offer workshops puppet theatre to selected groups.

Besides Teater Lakon, Teater Akur also brings me to Tegal. They performed their "Tani Menanti" inside a farming community last saturday. It was an organised chaos: many of the actors were local villagers, the multimedia didn't want to work, the railway right behind the village provided a noise background now and then, etc.etc. But the villagers responded very enthusiastic to the play, learned a little about theatre and were provided an evening full of enterntainment right before the ramadhan starts.

The biggest lesson for me is that community theatre/ interactive theatre is something very difficult needing a professional mindset and lots of experience. That is if you want it be both beautiful and effective. Nonetheless all the energy we put in it we will get right back from the audience. Teater Akur is a very young group and hopefully they have learned a lot from this performance. Tomorrow I will evaluate with them and listen to their stories.....

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Salam
Egbert