Preface

153
victims have nightmares), which the victims had to think about to
realize it was a sign requiring action. As they did not know the
significance of the sign, the action was to seek advice. On this
account, hermeneutics is not a limp-wristed preoccupation with
textual meaning (it is the doctor who is tied to a closed system of
signification determined by textual authority), but a sensitive
ability to consider actual events critically and devise an
appropriate response to them.
Alternative positions
My second example is from a play performed in the research
village in March 1989 by members of the Indonesian State Radio
Company, before an audience of over a thousand people. The plot
does not concern us here. I take two short extracts. The
characters on stage were an Old Retainer, Panasar, 125 a Young
Retainer who was his younger brother Wijil and the low caste wife
of the Prince of Nusa Penida, an island off Bali. This last role, the
Liku (played here incidentally by a man) is the stock part of a
slightly mad and spoiled princess, who breaks polite conventions
by saying what is normally left unsaid in public. Only the outlines
of the plot were fixed, the rest was extemporized in the light of
how the spectators reacted.
The first extract is from the opening scene, in which the Old
Retainer entered alone and addressed the audience. (As in the
previous example, the clarificatory parentheses are mine. The
original was in Balinese, and translation from Indonesian is in
italics. Performers drew on two other languages: kawi,
represented in bold, and English in bold italics.)
Old
Reta
iner:
...All of us living on this island cherish our
artistic and cultural life... How do we ensure it
flourishes? What’s the way to bring it about?
(For a start) it’s kind of you to put on this play.
Also, Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s good of you to
come and watch, because if we aren’t going to
125 The root is ‘base, foundation’. ‘Anchorman’ is the nearest English equivalent which
comes to mind. The piece was in Prèmbon style. That is it resembles, Arja, ‘opera, or
rather musical comedy’ (de Zoete and Spies 1938: 196), except that the actors playing
retainers wore masks.