- THEATRICAL EXHIBITIONS
The Malay Drama, taking the word in its widest sense as comprising every kind
of theatrical exhibition, includes performances of several different types, which
derive their origin from various distinct sources. Most of them bear some traces
of their foreign extraction, and though they have been much modified by the
Malays, and are now quite “naturalised” in the Peninsula, it is pretty clear that
the greater part have been borrowed from India, Siam, China, and possibly other
countries. It is noteworthy that many, perhaps most, of the plots represented in
these performances owe their origin to the old classical Indian Epics, and
especially to the story of the Ramayana, which has been handed down
traditionally, much modified by local colouring, in Java and Siam as well as in
the Malay Peninsula.
It is not within the scope of this work to give anything like a full description of
these different kinds of dramatic representations, but it is desirable to give some
account of the ritual which accompanies them, and the ideas and superstitions
which they seem to involve.
The most important of the ceremonies which relate to the Malay theatre is that of
inaugurating or “opening” (as it is called) a site for the performance. The
following is an account (by Mr. Hugh Clifford) of the performance of this
ceremony:—
“When one of these companies arrives at a place where it intends to ‘open,’ it
erects a small, square shed, open at all four sides, but carefully roofed in, and
with a hand-rail running round it about two feet from the ground. This shed is
called a Bangsal, and the space which its sides enclose is termed Panggong.
Before the play begins, the ceremony called Bûka Panggong, which has for its