Drama, theater, or play are the most popular literature things functioning as the entertainer, the script writer’s message sender, and the media of criticism. Drama is more popular starting from Shakespeare’s era until now because a drama can show what happens in the past, today, or in the future, and even it can show what the writer’s mindset of the particular social situation. In this case, Saturday Acting Club (SAC) from Yogyakarta had showed all of those functions of drama in their drama “The Queen and The Rebels” held in Salihara Theater Building on October 2, 2012. This drama tells about the revolutionists looking for queen admitted as the main actor of the chaos in their country which ask for revolution. They think that the queen is in her way to get out of the country, so they try to avoid it and stick to the opinion that the queen has to be given “dead penalty” because of what she does in that country. However, there are many points can be pointed making the drama is interesting and outstanding, such as: Lighting, setting, and plot. Those three points take some attention of the audiences because they determine how the story climb a mountain and get its climax.
Lighting is important in a play or drama because it supports the situation of the drama or play, whether it is in sadness or in happiness. In the drama of “the Queen and the Rebels”, we can conclude that the lighting they used in drama determines the impression of the audience to the story. Perhaps we can concern in the first minutes of the drama that they used dark and there was only a little of light there which was organized like the disco lamps. Actually, it really supported the play which was set in the war situation. As we know, we must make the situation of war is scary and creepy to show that war is one of thousand things that is avoided by humans to happen in this world, although it is done in the name of revolution. Moreover, we can also see how SAC really concern in lighting when a woman, named argia, tried to take the queen out of the house, it is heard a sound like she pressed a button to turn the lamp and then, the situation is precise like when we turn a lamp in our home in case the other lamps is still on. I think it is amazing point because I saw it as a new one along my “adventure” watching a play or drama and I know it is hard to do because there have to have enough practice and understanding between lighting organizer and the actress. By the changing situation from bright light to dark light, we can understand that it show how argia and the queen feel in their heart in that scene which can be interpreted that they are afraid of what they do, either the queen or Argia because if the revolutionists know it, death is something that they can not prevent and avoid.
After talking about lighting, I think it is not complete if we do not talk about the setting ( time and place). Actually, it is hard to recognize whether it happens at night or noon if we analyze from the visual points given and made by SAC because the setting uses 2 perspective, bright light in the main place and dark light surrounds in as the background, but we can find out by the dialogues between the characters. I think I remember that a man in the play, which was angry because whenever he went, soldier always stopped him and take some interrogations, said that it was night and then, when the queen was helped by Argia to get out there, the signal was the sound of owl, which was meant that it was night because owl do not appear at noon. I think it is interesting point showing that we need full attention and concentration to analyze the setting of time in this play. However, we can also concern to the setting of place in the play “the Queen and the Rebels. Maybe we can think that it is not a big deal for us because the play only uses a house for the setting of place, but we can not stop in there. We can see that all the properties they used in play were the opposite of the house where the play took place. As we know that there is only white-painted house used as the place, which can be interpreted a three stars hotel or dormitory, but if we look to the properties they used, there will be opposite meanings because they used old broken sofa in the corner and old wooden table in the center which also supports the situation of revolution war and the dictatorial character of the queen which was admitted by the revolutionists as the cause of chaos and poverty in their country.
My favorite points in “the Queen and the Rebels” is the plot because in my opinion, the script writer has been succeed to make the plot “tricky” and even can be said as smart and brilliant, and I think the key of this play is in the beginning and the ending. The plot of the drama started when a group of persons came to the house or hotel because they got interrogated and their car is broken. In this case, the script writer did not show the characters at all and even some characters can be said as the unexpected characters, such as: Komisaris Moses which acted he was ordinary person who had to be interrogated before making a tour or journey although he was one of the revolutionist. Personally, I was surprised about “komisaris moses” because I thought that he was one of the queen’s supporters which was in disguise and the script proved that I was wrong, he became one of the revolutionists determining almost the plot of the drama, even the ending. However, the other aspect that I said as “the unexpected” is the ending. Actually, in beginning I expected that the queen will die in the revolutionists’ hand because I got the meaning that in the drama, the queen did not have anybody to help her out of the problem, and also I had expected that the “buruh tani” was the queen. In this case, I was in balance; I was happy because my guess of the riddle who the queen is right because the queen’s behavior looked like someone in disguise and she/he is afraid of somebody knows his/her identity, but I was surprised that in the middle of drama, the queen is dead cause of her poison put as her necklace and her position was substituted by Argia, a woman helped her to escape. Argia suddenly became “the punished queen” because her games who wanted to save the queen’s identity, which took her to the “death penalty” prepared for the queen.
“The Queen and the Rebels” is an outstanding drama and it deserves more appreciations, especially SAC, which is played this story well. Actually, we can reflect and compare the situation between revolution in the drama and revolution of our nation in 1998 which took many victims of revolution. “The Queen and the Rebels” actually can be a warning for our government that they are people representative, so it is naturally acted that they make people aspirations as the very important aspects to do than what they want. It also shows that it cannot be last forever that people is silent watching their representative up there do what they should have not done, such as: Corruption, collusion, nepotism, etc, because once people move to make their aspiration heard or they want a revolution, there will be more victims in that situation. “The Queen and the Rebels” has many useful values and knowledge about affords in humans life, politic and social, etc.
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