Developing Theaters of Empowerment

THIS IS our Madame now," says Yayuk, pointing to Lena Simanjuntak. The one pointed at laughs loudly. Lena, 44, is a graduate in theater of the Institute of Arts Jakarta (IKJ) in 1979. Artists in IKJ first knew Lena as a member of the Independent Theater led by Putu Wijaya which put on the shows Lho [What!] and Entah [I don't know]. "After Putu began using scripts, I left," said Lena. Since the 80s, she was drawn to developing workers' theater, w...