Wawan Sofwan, 55, has consciously chosen theatre as his career. He has found a combination of chemistry, which he studied in college, and the theatrical world as his choice for the future.
By
PUTU FAJAR ARCANA
·6 minutes read
ARSIP JOZZ FELIX (TITIMANGSA FOUNDATION)
Wawan Sofwan
Wawan Sofwan, 55, has consciously chosen theatre as his career. He has found a combination of chemistry, which he studied in college, and the theatrical world as his choice for the future. He had never thought a profession in theater was possible due to his personality.
“I used to feel inferior, very scared of appearing in public, even only to utter a word,” said Wawan Sofwan on Sunday (6/12/2020) in Labuan Bajo, West Manggarai, East Nusa Tenggara. He was on a tour to observe the cultural potential of Labuan Bajo people at the invitation of a friend. “Who knew it could be composed into a stage performance,” added Wawan.
When studying at IKIP Bandung (Pedagogic and Teacher’s Training Institute, now Indonesian Educational University/UPI Bandung) in 1984, Wawan chose the Chemistry Education department. His choice of this discipline was prompted by the desire to fill the “shortage” chemistry teachers in his hometown, Ciamis, West Java. “So, it was just spontaneous though later I denied this,” said Wawan.
A friend named Mahfudi one day asked to be taken to the Theater Unit of Campus Activity. At the time, Mahfudi also spontaneously asked Wawan to register.
Wawan registered as a gesture of solidarity toward Mahfudi. Theater training sessions, for Wawan, were the most torturous moments. It was even more so when his two instructors, Godi Suwarna and Tisna Sanjaya, asked him to speak.
ARSIP MUHAMMAD SA'IQUDDIN ASHSHOFY
Wawan Sofwan
The actor born in Panjalu, Ciamis, West Java, further sank into inferiority as his fellow theater activists on campus always scoffed at him. “Ah…, he’s surely speechless… I was mocked like that almost every time,” he said. Feeling a lack of talent to be an actor, he later turned his attention to stage crew “jobs”. “They ranged from stage designing, lighting, to costume handling. I took charge of them all,” he related.
The first role he got with the IKIP Bandung theater was a guard in the drama Durma Yudha written by Godi Suwarna. “But throughout the play I was only allotted one dialogue phrase, ’Yes Master…’ It was all that way until the end of the show…. Ha-ha-ha…” said Wawan with a hearty laugh.
Momentum
The important momentum in his stage career emerged when in 1988 he joined the Bandung Theater Study-club (STB) under Suyatna Anirun. In those years, said Wawan, Suyatna Anirun was already popular in Indonesia’s theatrical world, on the same level as Arifin C Noer or Putu Wijaya. “My aim of joining the STB was to prove that I was capable of becoming an actor through perseverance,” said Wawan.
In this group. Wawan learned acting by trying to perform translated plays, which was the trend of the STB. But again, he was only given complementary roles. In the drama King Lear of William Shakespeare, for instance, he was assigned the role as a guard. “It got the same dialogue with only ‘Yes, Master…’ all the way,” revealed Wawan.
My aim of joining the STB was to prove that I was capable of becoming an actor through perseverance
Since the STB kept performing foreign dramas, Wawan found his acting skill underdeveloped. Then he ventured to set up Main Teater Bandung (MTB) group along with (the late) Nandang Aradea, Otong Durahim and Deden Abdul Aziz. It’s this group that would later become his theater production team.
MUHAMMAD SA'IQUDDIN ASHSHOFY
Wawan Sofwan
One day, his future wife, Een Rohaeni, asked, “Who will become a civil servant later on?” As fellow stage performers, Wawan felt that Een wished to share their roles so that their household “theater” would not be disturbed by the stage profession. With resolute boldness Wawan replied, “Let me go on the stage, you just work as an employee,” he said.
This answer, he noted, didn’t mean he would shirk his responsibility as head of the family. “I was confident that theater could also be my choice for survival…,” he said.
Een is now a chemistry teacher at the State Vocational High School 13 Bandung and Wawan carries on his theatrical career. The sharing of roles is thus truly manifested in the couple’s family life.
As a consequence, with all its risks and challenges, Wawan treats the theater as a professional domain. It doesn’t mean he loses his idealism in the pursuit of values of humanity on the stage, but he wants dismiss the assumption that the theater is a mere scene of fun in life. “The theater can also support life,” he firmly maintained.
The determination has been proven by Wawan through his deep involvement in acting by performing monologue works. He, for example, adapted the speeches of (first president) Bung Karno into seven monologue serials. With the MTB, he presented the works as far as Russia, Germany, Australia and various cities in Indonesia.
I could write as many as seven drafts before being typed
Wawan also scripted major dramas such as Bunga Penutup Abad (Century-End Blooms) and Nyai Ontosoroh, both derived from the novels of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, as well as Ladang Perminus (Nusantara Oil Company’s Fields) from a novel of Ramadhan KH and Lockdown from a novel of Albert Camus. When adapting these stories, Wawan actually used a pen and paper. “I could write as many as seven drafts before being typed,” he said.
ARSIP JOZZ FELIX (TITIMANGSA FOUNDATION)
Wawan Sofwan
Why written
“Handwriting makes me discover the rhythm, accentuation, motoric movement as the formulas in the science of chemistry. So, there’s chemistry between campus science and the theatrical world,” he said.
The father of Nirvana Vania and Audriane Sheyla Firdaus has proven the application of chemistry in the performance of Bunga Penutup Abad that was produced by actress Happy Salma. Wawan did not only write adaptations of the Buru Island tetralogy by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, he also acted as director of stage shows.
These dramas were performed in Jakarta and Bandung in two periods of shows. The tickets to each performance were always sold out.
He is now preparing to stage Lockdown, a drama adapted from the novel La Peste (The Plague) by Albert Camus. This novel led Camus to the Nobel Prize in 1957. According Wawan, the story in this novel has some semblance of what humans are currently facing amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Now we encounter the same thing. The pandemic has disrupted the order of urban life, changed behavior and caused apparently endless death. It seems to be the time for reflection through a medium like the theater,” said Wawan.
Lastly, he indicated, the theater would offer what science couldn’t give in leading this life. What is it? “The values of life!” he concluded.
Wawan Sofwan
Born: Panjalu, Ciamis, 17 October 1965
Education:
- Chemistry Education, IKIP Bandung
- Goethe Institute scholarships in Berlin (1995-1996) and Mannheim (2004)
- International Theater Institute Germany Hamburg (2005)
