Seeing The Greatness Of Ismail Marzuki And His Work Through Musical MAR

The musical performance MAR (Ivan Two Men/VOI)

JAKARTA - ArtSwara's musical drama was present at Ciputra Artpreneur, South Jakarta on February 26-28. This show features a romance with an Indonesian historical background and a dress made by Ismail Marzuki.

VOI had the opportunity to witness the final preparations before the first day of performance, where Gabriel Harvianto (Mar), Galabby Thahira (Aryati), Made Aurellia, Chandra Satria, Gizka Aulia, Bima Zeno Pooroe, Raditio PS, Taufan Purbo Kusumo, and Witrie Diana Putri played under the direction of director Wawan Sofwan.

Behind the story set in the Bandung Lautan Api incident in 1946, a total of 18 musical compositions of Ismail Marzuki were brought by actors on stage with music accompaniment led by Dian HP.

Musical MAR, said Dian, shows how Ismail Marzuki is a figure of Indonesian performing arts whose works are not restrained by the times.

"He has a work that is still remembered, and now he is presented for musical performances. And there are so many people who give awards to Ismail Marzuki, because the songs are really good," said Dian, met before the first day of performance.

Dian did not even hesitate to call Ismail Marzuki and his works a treasure that the Indonesian people can be proud of.

Ismail Marzuki's work is a treasure that Indonesia has. It's Indonesia's wealth. Songs created by composers, one of which is Ismail Marzuki, it's Indonesia's wealth. Ismail Marzuki himself is also Indonesia's property," said Dian. We can be proud and say, 'Here there is a cool composer, his name is Ismail Marzuki. These are the songs.'' Which songs are bad.

Dian's involvement in the musical MAR cannot be separated from his desire to present a different version of Ismail Marzuki's work, but it is still in line with all events presented on stage.

If people want to work on Ismail Marzuki's songs, the audience's question is 'What do you want to do with the song?' That's the big question of the audience and my question too. Because if it's normal, what are the challenges. But because there is Mrs. Dian, I said, 'Okay, Mrs. Dian, this song is already famous, people already know, if we're just normal, I don't think I need Mrs. Dian.'" said Wawan.

"Because there are challenges, there are kinds of innovations, the shape must be different. The challenge for a creator is actually. We don't want to repeat what has happened," continued the director.

In line with Dian and Wawan, Gabriel Harvianto, who has been involved in ArtSwara's production for 12 years, sees the musical MAR as the right show to re-introducing the composer's works.

Ismail Marzuki is an extraordinary composer. We can learn a lot, including feeling nationalism through his works," Gabriel said. This is good to be introduced again, to Gen Z especially, because quite a lot of people don't know that Indonesia has extraordinary composers, who have composed songs that are not inferior to the West.

ArtSwara's efforts to present original musical works - one of which is MAR also need appreciation. Gabriel hopes that musical performances can be the pride of the Indonesian people.

Gabriel said, "Because ArtSwara also always brings original works, hopefully ArtSwara can inspire other musical community friends to dare to try or produce new works that are original and typical of Indonesia, or stories that taste Indonesian. Now it's starting to get more and better, so that overseas they also know that Indonesia has a musical, not inferior to them."