Teguh Slamet Rahardjo
Teguh Slamet Rajardjo (1926–1996), popularly known as Teguh Srimulat, was an Indonesian comedian and actor.[1][2] With his first wife Raden Ajeng Srimulat, he founded the Srimulat comedy troupe which became popular in the postwar era for its absurdist Slapstick comedy and social satire.[3]
Early life
[edit]Teguh was born Kho Tjien Tiong in a Chinese Indonesian family in Klaten, Central Java, Dutch East Indies in 1926.[3] He was adopted by the Go family, who ran a printing company.[3] His primary education was in a Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan school in Surakarta.
Career
[edit]While working at his family's printing company in the early 1940s, Teguh was exposed to music and started to learn the violin and guitar from a Javanese neighbor, and formed a Keroncong group (a type of popular music in the Indies influenced by Hawaiian and Portuguese music).[3] The group was named Orkes Krontjong Asli.[1] He soon left his amateur orchestra to play in more popular groups like the Orkes Keroncong Bunga Mawar.[4] It was in 1946 while he was working as a guitarist that he met his future first wife, Raden Ajeng Srimulat, who was already a popular Keroncong singer.[1][5] They began to perform together regularly, to the point that he adopted her name as his stage name: Teguh Srimulat.[3][4] They were married in 1950, and in that same year they established their touring troupe, called variously Kerontjong Avond, Srimulat Review and Gema-Malem Srimulat; they performed most often in Surabaya.[2][4] They also regularly performed in night markets around Java.[4]
In the early 1960s, the touring troupe was re-launched as Aneka Ria Srimulat, with a home stage in Jakarta and regular appearances in Surabaya, Surakarta, and Semarang. Teguh pushed the group towards a more innovative kind of improvisational comedy as well as slapstick comedy and traditional Javanese forms.[4] As the troupe became much larger a number of its actors became well-known comedians in their own right, including Johni Gudel, Edy Geyol, Herry Koko, Gepeng, and Dandempo, and they began to make regular television appearances.[2] When his wife R. A. Srimulat died in 1968, the troupe continued without her, eventually shortening the group's name simply to Srimulat.[1] In 1970 Teguh remarried to another fellow comedian, Djudjuk.[6]
They also began to create comedic films in the 1970s, some of which Teguh co-wrote: Mayat Cemburu (1973) and Walang Kekek (1974).[4] Many of their skits and appearances involved parodies of American and other foreign films, mixing low-class Javanese language humour with satires of serious content.[1] Other skits parodied Bourgeois propriety and featured clever servants getting the best of their masters.[1] The peak of the group's popularity was from the 1960s to the 1980s, but they continued to produce famous comedians who became a part of Indonesian popular culture into the twenty-first century.[4]
Teguh died of a heart attack in Surakarta in 1996.[3]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f Mohamad, Goenawan (2006). "Srimulat: Translating/Not translating...*". In Lindsay, Jennifer (ed.). Between tongues: translation and/of/in performance in Asia (Reprint ed.). Singapore: Singapore University Press. pp. 68–87. ISBN 9789971693398.
- ^ a b c Ibrahim, Muchtaruddin; Said, Julinar; Riama, Espita; Maryam, Andi (1999). Ensiklopedi tokoh kebudayaan IV (in Indonesian). Jakarta: Direktorat Jenderal Kebudayaan. pp. 159–61.
- ^ a b c d e f Suryadinata, Leo (2015). "Biographies". Prominent Indonesian Chinese. ISEAS Publishing. pp. 268–9. doi:10.1355/9789814620512-004. ISBN 978-981-4620-51-2.
- ^ a b c d e f g Matanasi, Petrik (30 August 2020). "Aneka Ria Srimulat: Mulanya Jual Nyanyian, Akhirnya Jual Lawakan". tirto.id (in Indonesian). Retrieved 7 July 2021.
- ^ Putra, Muhammad Andika (28 September 2019). "Cinta Abadi dan Pengorbanan Srimulat, Teguh, dan Jujuk". CNN Indonesia (in Indonesian).
- ^ "Djudjuk Srimulat Sangat Mengagumi Suami". TEMPO (in Indonesian). 6 February 2015. Retrieved 8 July 2021.