Ngesti Pandowo

The bleachers were empty. While the players of Ngesti Pandowo, the puppet men community was getting ready on the backstage. They were dressing. In front of the mirror, Arjuna, a hero in historic of Java was busy painting his eyebrows. In the next box of jewelry, there is such a puppet hat that ready to wear for Arjuna. In another room, but still behind of the stage, four puppet man, named Punakawan also busy to make up. The group of Punakawan are Semar, Gareng, Petruk, and Bagong. they were busy painting his face with white colour. Then, he began to coloring red on the middle of his lips. After painting their faces, Punakawan wore the same costume that is one-eighth full length pants with a blue vest. Then, they wore a kupluk that is a hat appropriate with their characters.

it was a quarter seven o'clock tonight. The show almost started. Gending, a traditional music instrument, started to playing in tune. The stage was ready to use and look beautifully decorating. In the top picture there is Mangkoro logo and the words of "Ngesti Pandowo" inscribed with Javanese letter. However, this building space in the complex of Ki Narto Sabdo Cultural Park Raden Saleh (TBRS), Semarang city, Indonesia, only filled with two dozen people who are ready to enjoy the show. Substantively, this capacity building space for 240 spectators.
Cicuk Sastrosudirjo sitting alone among the rows of the spectators. As a community builder of Ngesti Pndowo, he could only surrender. Ngesti Pndowo seems to have lost prestige than the first, in 1954. He only hope that the government should give a special attention to this community that now can only rely on income from the spectators.

In my eyes, this is a unique show. This is a traditional show. Unfortunatelly, people were not appreciate for this show. Only, the old man or woman that still enjoyed this show. People prefer to watch television or film that enjoy this show. Actually, this is a nice show and have a value that good for people.