Willibrordus Rendra

Willibrordus Surendra Broto Narendra, widely known as Rendra or W. S. Rendra, was an Indonesian poet, dramatist, activist, performer, actor and director. He was born in Surakarta to a Roman Catholic family and baptized as Willibrordus Surendra Bawana Rendra. He shortened his name to Rendra when he converted to Islam in 1970. He studied English literature and culture at Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta, but chose not to graduate because he was already employed with his first theatrical project. He staged his first play, "Dead Voices", in 1963, and became fascinated with the craft. He combined traditional religious ritual performances and Western avant-garde experiments, and created a large following. He was nicknamed "Burung Merak" (the Peacock) by the press because of his flamboyant performances on the stage. In the 1960s, his theatrical company, Bengkel Teater, was instrumental in inaugurating a stream of innovative, modernist, and controversial theatre performances that were based on Western models. He created a series of dramas without any dialog, where actors used their bodies and simple sounds to communicate. He also performed Shakespeare, Brecht, and Hamlet when he was well into his sixties. During the 1970s, his plays often criticized Suharto's development programs that favored multinational corporations over the interests of indigenous peoples. His plays, such as "Mastodon", "The Condors", "The Struggle of the Naga Tribe" and "The Regional Secretary", were sometimes banned or censored by the authorities. He was also arrested and imprisoned several times for his political activism and outspokenness. He was a prolific writer, producing numerous poems and plays, as well as essays and translations. He received many awards and honors, such as the Art of the Indonesian Government (1970), the S.E.A. Write Award (1996), and the honorary doctorate from Gajah Mada University (2003). He was married three times and had eleven children. He died of kidney failure in 2009, at the age of 73.