W.S. Rendra

Willibrordus Surendra Broto Rendra (7 November 1935 - 6 August 2009 in Depok, West Java - aged 73), widely known as Rendra or W. S. Rendra, was an Indonesian dramatist, poet, activist, performer, actor and director.

Born to a Roman Catholic family (his father was a Catholic English teacher) and baptized as Willibrordus Surendra Bawana Rendra, he changed his name to 'only' Rendra when he embraced Islam in 1970. After studying English literature and culture at Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta (Central Java), he didn't make time to graduate because with his first theatrical project he was already gainfully employed. In 1963 he staged his first play ( "Dead Voices"), became fascinated with the craft, and from then on, with his traditional religious ritual performances, as well as Western avant-garde experiments, captured and kept large audiences. Because of the nature of his poetry readings and his sexy performances on the stage, he was given the nickname "Burung Merak“ (the Peacock) by the press.

In the 1960s the company of Rendra was instrumental in inaugurating a stream of innovative, modernist, and controversial theatre performances that were based to a large extent on Western models. In 1969 he created a series of dramas without any dialog where actors employed their bodies and simple sounds such as "bip bop", "zzzzz" and "rambate rate rata". The journalist poet Goenawan Mohamad dubbed these experimental performances as “mini-word theatre.” During the 1970s, his plays such as "Mastodon" and "The Condors” and “The Struggle of the Naga Tribe” and “The Regional Secretary” were often banned because they openly criticized Suharto’s development programs that often alienated indigenous people and tended to side with multinational corporations.

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