Onrop Musikal!

Hihihihi, finally I made it, I actually watched musical show here in my home town, not in some strange countries with foreign cultures.

Onrop Musikal! is a performance mainly intended to insult criticize our current government and mainly the whole gang of community. It’s about defining what exactly the real important norm is, not some pre-defined morale in some sort of ridiculous so-called Law. It’s about tolerance, and my personal fave quote, “Di pulau kami ada norma yang berlaku. Namanya toleransi. Di pulau kami semua orang punya agama, hanya saja tidak ada yang memaksakan agamanya masing-masing.” Or something like that.

The show was pretty much entertaining, and despite the nonstrategic placement of viewers bench (hello, I think they could do better than that 45 degrees of viewing experience, say enlarge the theater perhaps?) I could see the choreography and the singing tune is also clear. The jokes is splendid, given that you’re up to-date with the news, that is.

I couldn’t help but to compare it with Siam Niramit theater in Bangkok, though. The stage was significantly smaller, and the way they made transition in-between scenes is a bit disappointing. The stage was not dark enough, and we could actually see they moving the props around. Just saying.

BUT, the singing part was tremendous. When (afterward) I realized that the actors were actually singing live on-the-spot, pheww, that brought a whole lot new dimension. Indonesian people can actually sing, people!

The story set in 2020 where Indonesia’s government established one distinctive island called Pulau Onrop. Everyone that committed act against the moral law will be banished to that island. Pretty much like Nusakambangan right now minus the security guard and the actual prison building. it’s just an island, where people were supposed to die when deserted in there.

The thing is, in 2020, there’s so many law dictating (mostly female’s) way of dressing, no gay-related thing, the prohibition of saying porn-related words (i.e. naked, horny, human reproduction organ, etc) –all being replaced with a phrase of, “Ho-oh”. The impact is pretty harsh. Statues being cloth-covered, there’s 9pm curfew, no-leg-showing clothing, aaaaand women will have no say whatsoever (depicted in a dialog where one book author announced his latest book, entitled How To Glorify Your Husband, which is cih-cih-cuih for me).

Which is actually not a non-common practice here in Indonesia. Ugh!

Oh yeaaaah, one of the best quote,

“People with no particular skills in Indonesia only got two choices in life. Either being a politician OR a bum. We are bum BY CHOICE, cause we don’t wish to bother other people.”

I kinda hope this show will be a regular tourism play. Cause that would be cool. And the director should put some sort of subtitle placement so that everyone will understand.

This is the video of Onrop Musikal! teaser trailer.