THE DRAMA

No FEAST IS COMPLETE IN BALI without music and elaborate dramatic and dance performances; no one would dream of getting married, or holding a cremation, or even of celebrating a child's birthday, without engaging troupes of dancers and actors to entertain the guests and the neighbours.

During the anniversary feasts of the temple there are always dances that last throughout the night and may even continue for days, with a different type of show every afternoon and night. At the great feast of Taman Badung, the death temple of Den Pasar, there were shows every night for an entire month.

The Balinese love night-life and it was rare when after ten at night someone did not come to us with news of a show somewhere, or when we did not hear distant music in the village. We became such enthusiastic theatre-goers that we had, sometimes, to make a point of staying home to catch up with lost sleep.

Even the tired peasant who works all day in the fields does not mind staying up at night to watch a show, and the little children who invariably make up the front rows of the audience remain there until dawn for the end, occasionally huddled together taking naps, but wide awake for the exciting episodes of the play.