The Play's The Thing

Thursday 10th March 2010, 10.20pm, Luna Cafe, Ubud - Bali

You may remember that the last time I was in Bangkok I was reading a book that I raved about called 'Eat Pray Love'. The third portion of that book is set in Bali, when the author spent 4 months living in the central town of Ubud. Now, I quite like playing at other people, this is probably one of the reasons I ended up studying Theatre and Performance. As a child I never contemplated growing up to be just an older version of myself, but always wanted to be James Herriot, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, David Attenborough, Jo March from Little Women or Nancy from Oliver Twist (although clearly I would have told Bill Sykes where to get off long before he had a chance to take a crowbar to my head). Today I've been playing Elizabeth Gilbert, autobiographical writer and central character of afore mentioned novel. I've come to Ubud to be quiet, to think, to hike, to eat and to pray; I'll leave the 'love' part to Ella, Lizzie and Kirst, who have gone for a day trip on the East Coast to surf - and to show their love and appreciation for the surfers.

Ubud is everything my Elizabeth promised it would be. A hilly little town where the sun sets late in a burnt red sky over acres of lush green rice paddies and school children grazing their knees playing football on the village field. The air smells like cinnamon and cloves from the local, widely-smoked herbal tobacco, the shops and eateries are plentiful yet the town is hushed below the singing of crickets in long grasses, the only tourists are older couples and so I am left in peace to wander narrow streets set in the midst of thick jungle crawling with monkeys. You know that supposed fact about London living which states you're never more than 4 metres away from a rat? Well I think Ubud is the same with apes.

I came out of my bungalow this morning to find a hairy old Macaque sat cross-legged on a chair on my veranda. I stood, still yet startled, and he looked at me impatiently like he'd been waiting for me to come and serve him some tea. Breakfasting with monkeys, nothing will seem strange anymore. They can sometimes be vicious though so you do have to be on your guard if you're not prepared to share your toast and fruit with them. This morning I went for a trek around Monkey Forest Sanctuary, a huge reserve of untouched jungle containing three beautiful, crumbling stone temples. Whilst negotiating my way up the path and through the undergrowth I almost jumped out my skin when an older female tourist came pelting and screaming out of the bush on my right hand side and darted across the track back into the foliage on my left. Above her head she was grabbing an inconspicuous bottle of water, and hot on her heels was a screeching baboon with his eyes on the thirst quenching prize.

Besides being more populated with primates than it is with people, Ubud is renowned as the cultural and creative capital of the country. It is strewn with homegrown art galleries, stone mason's yards, carpenter's workshops, jewellery handicrafts, bars offering poetry recitals and live folk bands for entertainment. The real highlight though, the thing that Ubud particularly excels in, is its performing arts. There are daily traditional dance performances at Ubud Palace and I managed to catch the end of one today. This succeeded in wetting my appetite for a little more theatre, and so tonight I went to see a Balinese opera entitled Kecak Srikandhi by the Ubud Tengah Community company.

The whole thing was truly, mind-bogglingly astounding. I am at a complete loss for words other than to tell you it was literally jaw-droppingly fantastic. I've seen a lot of theatre in my time, given my allegiance to the medium from such a young age. I've been to countless plays, dances, installation pieces, community projects, rehabilitation workshops, recitals, student writings and amateur dramatics, I've even spent some time being paid to teach and devise the stuff myself. But never, in all these years of committed audience membership, have I ever been witness to a performance of such raw intensity, such tangible atmosphere and air borne passion as this. Just entering the venue left me gobsmacked. It had been raining tonight; thick, heavy, tropical, open your mouth tilt your head back and get a good drink kind of rain. I arrived at my destination at 8pm, soaked like I'd just stepped out of the shower, to be directed through massive stone gates under dripping palm canopies into the outdoor courtyard of a temple. Tea-light candles had been lit to illuminate the square, the flickering flames the only light in this ancient and eroding sanctuary of worship, throwing short, darting shadows across the eerie soon-to-be stage. At one end of the space the candles ran up a huge stone staircase which was covered with plucked orchids and hand-embroidered banners. The air was hot and close and damp, twenty or so whispering audience members sat on plastic chairs in front of the old temple steps, and a cast of 80 Balinese performers (all but 3 of them women) descended the stairs dressed in elaborate traditional costume, carrying flaming torches, and began to howl their mesmerising cries.

The story was true fairytale fodder of legend, a princess is kidnapped by a neighbouring evil King, from a banquet in which her father presents his 3 daughters to would-be suitors. Amba, the princess, begs to be set free to be returned to her true love, and the evil King Bhisma takes pity on her, understanding what love is himself, and lets her go. But on returning to her love she is rejected, her young prince considering her tarnished. She heads back to Bhisma who will not take her back, Amba having wounded his pride by leaving him and breaking his heart. She refuses to leave and so to scare her away he aims his bow and arrow at her. But the arrow slips, and pierces her heart. As she is dying she promises that she will return to reek her revenge. Return she does, as a transvestite war warrior, who years later when the country is experiencing civil unrest, returns and kills Bhisma in battle with his own bow and arrow. Not one word of it was in English, but it could not have been clearer (plus the brochure helped).

It was in parts terrifying, graphic, tense, and in others filled with humour and slapstick and carnival-esque jubilation. A hypnotised Dionysiac party of fierce, powerful chanting women, the whole spectacle seemed like a glimpse for me in to a long forgotten cult; it vibrated with religious fervour, pagan worship and devilish ritualism. I've been known to have a bit of a sing song before, and no, I don't just mean in the shower. I've sung at a few functions, the odd competition here and there, warbled away on a theatre stage or two, helped a friend's band out at University when they needed a vocalist who knew her way around a Blues chord. So despite being no expert, and definitely no Edith Piaf, I have sung enough to know how difficult, how physically challenging it would be to sing continuously, without pause, for a whole hour. Yet this is what these women did, and did exceptionally well. You wouldn't have needed to be a singer yourself to acknowledge the stamina, the precision timing, the breathing control, the breadth of their tonal range, the depth of their vocal power and the consummate professionalism of this ensemble choir.

Stunning, unbelievable, that such remarkable ability and creativity lies under the cover of darkness and candlelight, amongst temple ruins in a jungle, in a town that most people will never bother to leave the beaches of Bali to visit. Well, lucky old me. The world is full of secret treasures, of unknown gifts, talented, uncelebrated people and little spoken of wonders, and it always feels like such a blessing to stumble across one when you are not expecting it. If I had come to Ubud on the first day of my two weeks in Bali, I would not have gone anywhere else.