Wayang Cuchulain

18 & 19 June 2002

A Celtic tale of Cuchulain, the son of the Celtigh god of the Sun, Lugh and human mother, Dechtire. 

Directed and devised by Joko Susilo and Matthew Isaac Cohen
Music by Gamelan Naga Mas
Puppets and scenography by Joko Susilo

Puppet theatre in Europe is thought of primarily as a children’s art form, but Wayang Kulit in Java (Indonesia) is loved by adults and children. It is Java’s most important living repository for classical rhetoric, philosophy, traditional etiquette, music and theatre. The solo puppeteer, or dhalang, is a total artist who weaves tales, manipulates puppets, sings songs, provides percussive effects with a wooden knocker and metal plates, utters the occasional incantation, and entertains audiences of all ages. Puppets, made from carved and painted buffalo hide, are back lit, casting their filigreed shadows on a white cotton screen. The performance can be watched from both sides of the screen—Wayang Kulit is thus both shadow theatre and puppet theatre simultaneously.

Musical accompaniment in Wayang Kulit is provided by a Gamelan, or gong-chime musical ensemble. Gamelan is both the name of a set of instruments and of a form of music. A Gamelan orchestra is composed of a variety of metallic xylophones, gongs, sound kettles, drums and other instruments. Gamelan music, figuratively compared to the sound of rippling water, is highly stratified and polyphonic, but not based on Western harmonies. There are two basic tunings, the pentatonic slendro tuning and the heptatonic pelog tuning. This performance uses a pelog set of instruments named ‘Spirit of Hope’ owned by the Glasgow City Council.

Wayang Kulit is a living tradition. In addition to the traditional solo-puppeteer form, there are numerous other forms of shadow puppetry practiced both in Indonesia and abroad. Perhaps the most spectacular is known as Wayang Sandosa, a multi-puppeteer experimental shadow puppet theatre that developed at the arts conservatory Akademi Seni Karawitan Indonesia (ASKI) in the 1970s and 1980s. Stories are told in an accessible Indonesian (as opposed to the rarified Javanese of traditional Wayang Kulit) by off-stage narrators and actors; musical accompaniment combines traditional Javanese Gamelan with other traditional ethnic musics and modern art music; human action (including human shadows) can be used in addition to puppets.

This production of Wayang Cuchulain brings the experimental techniques of Wayang Sandosa to the great Celtic saga of Cuchulain. It is the final production in a year-long collaboration between Joko Susilo (who studied and taught at ASKI), Matthew Isaac Cohen and Gamelan Naga Mas. Our intention is to create epic music theatre that is neither Javanese nor Scottish, but speaks to universal values in a poetic register.

The story of Cuchulain

The Celtic world’s greatest hero CUCHULAIN is known as the son of SUALTIM, but he is in fact the son of the Celtic god of the sun, LUGH, and a human mother, DECHTIRE. He is brought up communally by the great warriors and sages of Ulster and from a young age makes a reputation as a great warrior. His birth-name SETANTA is replaced by ‘Cuchulain’ (meaning the hound of Culain) when he accidentally kills the watch dog of the smith CULAIN and vows to guard Culain’s dun in its stead. Cuchulain’s great love is for his wife EMER, but he has relations with many other women as well, including the woman-warrior AOIFE, who is the mother of Cuchulain’s only son. Cuchulain’s powers are fantastic, and his battle-fury is unmatched. His most powerful weapon is the belly spear known as the Gae Bolg, given to him at the conclusion of his training in the Island of Skye by the woman-warrior SKATHA.

The story of Cuchulain has survived both in oral form throughout the Celtic world and as numerous manuscripts in Gaelic, many of which have been translated into English. This play is based closely on two English-language redactions from the early twentieth century: Lady Gregory’s Cuchulain of Muirthemne and T.W. Rolleston’s Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race.

The performers

Joko Susilo is an eighth generation puppeteer born in Sragen, Central Java, Indonesia. He holds a doctorate in ethnomusicology from Otago University (New Zealand) and has been a lecturer in puppet arts at Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia (The Indonesian Conservatory for the Performing Arts) in Surakarta, Central Java since 1987. Dr Susilo is well known among his generation of puppeteers and has performed internationally in New Zealand, the United States and Great Britain. He is currently Leverhulme Trust artist-in-residence at the University of Glasgow, puppeteer-in-residence at the Scottish Mask and Puppet Centre and instructor in the HND course in puppet theatre arts at Anniesland College.. Dr Susilo can be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Matthew Isaac Cohen began his studies of Wayang Kulit in 1988, with a Fulbright grant to Indonesia. He holds a PhD in anthropology from Yale University and is a lecturer in theatre studies at the University of Glasgow. In addition to writing extensively about Indonesian performance, he also practises what he preaches; he has performed Wayang Kulit in Indonesia, the United States, Israel, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. Dr Cohen can be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Musical accompaniment in Wayang Cuchulain is provided by the Gamelan orchestra. This performance uses a set of instruments named Spirit of Hope owned by the Glasgow City Council, performed by the ensemble Naga Mas. Music has been drawn from the traditional Javanese repertoire, Solonese style. Original compositions for this production are by J. Simon Van der Walt, Jon Keliehor, and Joko Susilo.

Musical Director

Joko Susilo

The Musicians

Signy Jakobsdottir Kendang
Maryanne Carroll Bonang Barung
Sophie Pragnell Bonang Panerus
Jon Keliehor Saron 1
Dania H. Soedibyo Saron 2
Aviva Cohen Saron 3
Chris Hladowski Saron 4
J Simon van der Walt Demung 1, Flügel Horn
Margaret Smith Demung 2, Gender, Flute
Katherine Waumsley Demung 3, Flute
Nick Fells Peking, Suling
Hooi Ling Eng Slenthem
Martin Sewell Kenong, Kethuk
Raymond Carstairs Gong
Helen Evans Gender
Aris Daryono Rebab

Puppeteers/narration/voices/dance

Matthew Cohen
Joko Susilo
Clem Sandison
Deborah Neville
Kate Craddock
Liam Hurley
Marian Friedl
Marisa Latimer
Tina Kinsey
Trev Hill