The Law Of Java

Welcome to the discovery of a lost treasure from within the theatre world....

The Law of Java!

For over 180 years this play has faded into the history records, lying dormant and untouched. The only known surviving copy, housed in the British library, has not been disturbed for years...until now!

For the first time since 1823, students at Royal Holloway University (University of London) for part of their academic course, have revived a century old play and on November 30th 2006, performed this forgotten literary work to an audience of hundreds, which included the Ambassador of Indonesia himself.

The project which was undertaken by 18 students and led by Dr. Matthew Isaac-Cohen, involved a great amount of wide research around the text, detailed analysis of the text, workshops on both traditional Javanese courtroom dancing and martial arts and wayang kulit training which would eventually lead to a 1hour 30 minute public performance of the text, directed, produced, designed, edited and performed by the group.

This aim of this website is to act as a record of this project and a resource for all the materials that went in to make this project a success.

Please feel free to browse through the research and materials made avaliable on this site and to read the 'lost' text itself!

Tom Jones and Basia Polikowska - Parbaya and Zaide (2006 production)

*Future plans: The project team are currently looking to bring the performance to the South Bank Centre (London)  as part of a gamelan festival on 9-10 June 2007. There are also hopes, and great external interest shown, in taking this performance to the island of Java, Indonesia, for performances across the country and a televised event.*

For any issues or queries concerning the project or any of the materials on this site please contact the website editor. All material on the site is property of the group and any use, other than personal, is prohibited without consent of the group. Requests for use of the materials contained within this website should also be directed to the website editor: josephbooton@hotmail.com