ABSTRACT
This article discusses theatre training/practice focusing on Arifin C Noer and Putu Wijaya as trainers/auteurs working nationally and internationally and known for heritage elements, urbane modernity and international experience. While the artists cannot represent all Indonesia, these significant artist-directors shared interests in appropriating global strains – absurdism, surrealism, alienation – for effecting post-colonial free expression. Acting was a tool of self-actualization and experimentation without the borders of the repressive New Order (1967–1998) regime. Using intra- and intercultural forms these artists struggled to represent post-colonial fractures. The techniques when shared with American student-actors disrupted assumptions of American method-based acting and clarified political and aesthetic formations of contemporary Indonesia.
