The old Kawi epics are popularized by the theater, the topeng, and the common wayang-wayang, or shadow-dance of puppets, where a manager delivers the well-known lines. Of these three dramatic forms the topeng is the highest, the most classic and refined presentation, a lyric drama very like the No dance of Japan, and doubtless, like the No dance, had a religious origin. A topeng troupe has its dalang, or manager, who prompts, sometimes explains, and often delivers all the lines for the masked actors; and there is a gamelan, or orchestra, of four or more musicians, and a chorus which chants accompanying and explanatory verses as the action proceeds. Great princes maintain their own private topeng troupes, and in their palace presentations, and always in the presence of native royalties, the actors go without masks. The topeng’s gamelan consists of two sets of the circles of tiny gongs (gong or agong, a pure Javanese word and instrument), that are struck with wooden sticks, and two wood and two metal gambang kayu (wood and metal bars of different length and thickness mounted on a boat-shaped frame), or native xylophones, to which single instrument the name “gamelan” is so often given in the West.
The common wayang-wayang of the people is a modification of the same masked or puppet drama that was in vogue long before the Mohammedan conquest. As the religion of Islam forbade the representation of the human figure, the susunhan ordered the puppets to be so distorted that the priests could not call them images of human beings, and that even then only their shadows, thrown on a curtain, should be seen. Hence the exaggerated heads, the beaks and noses, of the cardboard jumping-jacks which, pulled by unseen strings, serve to maintain an interest in the national history and legends, and by preludes and lines, chanted in classic Kawi, preserve acquaintance with the literary language among the common people. There is a form of wayang-wayang half-way between this puppet-show and the real drama, in which the actors themselves are visible, wearing distorted masks; but the plays are of modern times, in the common dialect, and the manager often improvises his lines and scenes as the play progresses. With these popular dramas there rank the performances of the graceful bedaya, or dancing-girl, whose tightly folded sarong, floating scarf-ends, measured steps, outward sweep of the hand, and charming play of arm and wrist recall the Japanese maiko. Although the winsome bedaya is sculptured on Boro Boedor’s recording walls, there is nothing there to indicate the puppet-play, nor anything from which it might have evolved, although from other records ethnologists claim that the Javanese possessed this dramatic art when the Hindus came. A love of the drama in the form of the topeng and the wayang-wayang was so ingrained in the tastes and fixed in the customs of the people that the Mohammedan conquerors could not suppress those popular amusements, and were finally content to modify them in trifling points. The Dutch were also wise enough never to interfere with these harmless pleasures of the people, the greatest distraction and delight of these sensitive, emotional, innately esthetic and refined Javanese, who will sit through shadow-plays for half the night, and are moved to frenzy and tears by the martial and romantic exploits of their national heroes.
All of society,—the two hundred of Djokja’s superior circle,—European and native together, gathered at the Societeit’s marble hall on the night of the topeng. That exalted being, the resident, entered in his modestly gilded uniform; and all the company rose, and stood until he and Prince Pakoe Alam had advanced and seated themselves in the two arm-chairs placed in front of the chairs of the rest of the audience. “Our best people are all here to-night,” said our amiable table d’hôte acquaintance of the Hotel Toegoe; and we looked around the lofty white hall, where row upon row of robust, prosperous-looking Europeans sat in state attire. All the men wore heavy cloth coats, either richly frogged military jackets or the civilian’s frock or cutaway, only a few wearing conventional black dress-coats, and none the rational white duck clothes of the tropics. The Dutch ladies were dressed in rich silks, brocades, and even velvets, and fanned vigorously as a natural consequence, while more of mildew fumes than of sachet odors came from these heavy cloth and silk garments, whose care and preservation are so difficult in the tropics. One was reminded of those tropical burghers in crimson velvet coats who received Lord Macartney and Staunton in a red velvet council-room at Batavia just one century before. The native officers and their families were naturally more interesting to a stranger—splendid-looking Javanese men, who stood and walked like kings, all wearing the battek kerchief or turban folded in myriad fine plaitings, richly patterned sarongs, and the boat-handled kris showing at the back of the short black military jacket. Many of these native officials had constellations of stars and decorations pinned to their breasts, and their finely cut features, noble mien, and graceful manners declared them aristocrats and the fine flower of an old race. Their wives, shy, slender, graceful women in clinging sarongs and the disfiguring Dutch jacket, wore many clasps and buckles and jeweled knobs of ear-rings. They seemed to have inherited all the Hindu love of glittering, glowing jewels, and the Buddhist love of flowers and perfumes, each little starry-eyed, flower-like woman redolent of rose or jasmine attar, and wearing some brilliant blossom in the knot of satin-black hair. The women had thrust their pretty brown feet into gold-heeled mule slippers, that clicked musically on the tiles as they walked, while the children comfortably rubbed their bare feet on the cool white floor.
A few Chinese families, nearly all of them Paranaks, or half-castes, to the island born, were there; the women in gay embroidered satins, jeweled and diamonded out of all reason, and the children gay as cockatoos and parrakeets in their bright little coats and caps and talismanic ornaments. Rows of shadowy, silent natives, opas, lantern- and pajong-bearers, and attendants of every kind, crouched in rows among the great columns of the portico—gallery gods who squatted spellbound, rapt, and freely tearful in their enjoyment of the splendid topeng produced that night.
TOPENG TROUPE WITH MASKS.
Prince Pakoe Alam’s artists rendered for the sake of military charities a four-act lyric drama, dealing with the adventures of mythical Panji, a hero of Hindu times, who is said to have introduced the kris to Java. The gamelan’s music was all soft harmonies, tender, weird, sad melodies in plaintive minor key, that accompanied the action throughout. The high-pitched nasal recitatives, the squeaks and squawks and stamps of fencing warriors, the slow posing, the stilted and automatic movements of all the actors, were enough like the No dance of Japan to confuse one greatly. All the actors were magnificently costumed and accoutred, their dresses, armor, and weapons being historic properties of the Pakoe Alam family, that had figured on festal occasions in the topengs of a century and more. In the first act four women in silk sarongs and velvet jackets did a regular Delsarte dance, with all those theatrical poses, sweeps, and gestures with the devitalized arm and wrist that the trainers of the would-be beautiful are teaching in America. Dark-robed attendants, identical with the mutes and invisible supers of the Japanese stage, crawled around behind the principals, arranging costumes, handing and carrying away weapons, as needed. Then deliberate mortal combat raged to slow music; and after it the harmless automatic dance was resumed. There was one tedious act where warriors in modern military jackets, worn with sarongs, indulged in long-drawn recitatives in Kawi; there were prolonged fan, spear, and bow drills; and one fine final act, where heroes, stripped to the waist in old style, with bodies powdered yellow, and half protected by gorgeously gilded breast-plates, fenced with fury and some earnest.
At the end of the first act nearly every man in the audience rose and went out, each mopping his brows and whewing great breaths of air from his lungs. Some few returned with cups of coffee, glasses of pink lemonade, and tall beakers of soda-water for the perspiring ladies wedged in their chairs. These men stayed outside after that act, declaring themselves only during intermissions, when they rushed cooling drinks to their partners at the front. At the end of three hours Panji triumphed over all his enemies, the performance ended, chairs scraped loudly as the audience stirred, the applause was long, and the sighs of relief profound.