BWW Review : TIN REPUBLIC at Graha Bhakti Budaya, Taman Ismail Marzuki

TIN Republic opened up in the Graha Bhakti Budaya Theatre for a limited time only from the 24th to the 26th of February every 6.30 PM Indonesian time.

The musical depicts a story about two young and aspiring journalists, Gaby Martiny and Joni Latuputy, who are always eager to find the truth in any news they are trying to report about.

Realizing that there aren't a lot of big stories to report on their hometown "Tin Village", Gaby and Joni's Chief Editor of the TIN Republic Newspaper decided to send them both to "Diamond City" to embark on a quest in finding news worth reporting. But things don't quite add up once they arrive at the city, so it's up to Gaby and Joni to investigate and find out the oddities behind the city.

Having been around for almost ten years, TIN Republic Musical is yet again another production created by TEKO UI (Teater Psikologi Universitas Indonesia / Theatre of the University of Indonesia's Psychology Faculty). Journalism's the big theme brought up to the stage by TEKO UI. According to Ranggih Wukiranuttama, the scriptwriter of TIN Republic, the story is relevant to what is happening in Indonesia right now, where a lot of hoaxes as well as fake news and stories circle around the web and a lot of people unfortunately shared the news and made it viral without being critical about the information. The musical engages you to not trust any news received as is, that we have to be critical about anything that we see or hear, since there is always two sides of a story.

I had the honor of watching on their first day of the musical, and it is amazing how a group of psychology students and alumni still find the time to create a full on running musical for three days non stop. Hearing from Redha Taufik Ardias, the Co-Director of TIN Republic Musical, this production is the biggest that TEKO UI has ever done. It is a big challenge for the cast and crew but through it all everyone is hoped to learn through the experience.

The cast did justice to TIN Republic, and overall did an amazing job in portraying each and every character. Audiences were treated laughter, amazement, resentment and also sorrow throughout the 3 hour musical.

I have to give props to three of the characters that are stuck still right now in my head because of their amazing performance.

First is Gaby Martiny. The actress who portrayed the character did an immense job in telling the story of this tough reporter who has a dark past. Her acting chops were proven well during the scenes where she was recovering from a trauma of being sexually harassed, and it definitely struck a chord to every audience watching.

I have to say without Joni Latuputy, the musical would've missed something great! His way of portraying a carefree and somewhat reckless and goofy journalist made the auditorium filled with joy. Kudos for the actor who can also bring resentment, frustration and anger on stage when he saw that something wasn't right in "Diamond City", or during the time he realized the truth of why Gaby went missing.

The playmaker of the story should be Raga, portrayed by TIN Republic's Co-Director himself, Redha Taufik Ardias. I was surprised when this character popped out during the musical, it seemed that he was a happy and pretty much really nice "Diamond City" Citizen who gives all his love to his one and only sister, Nada. But early judgements aside, Redha gave a heart wrenching cry of agony and sorrow when he found out that he lost his sister that pretty much moved the audience to tears.

Acting chops aside, the music played a big part throughout the musical. During fillers, and also the cast singing, the orchestra did a great job in creating a mood for each and every scene, but I still do believe that TIN Republic should develop their musicality aspect more in terms of vocal performance.

TIN Republic depicts a story of two young journalists eager to find out the truth in everything they see. Making it very relevant according to the situation these days, TIN Republic wants to give the audience a message - spread the word that citizens should always be critical in processing any news they receive, and to sound the truth during every outcome, and to more than 2000 attendance lists throughout the 3 days of their show, I do believe that the message is well received throughout.

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