Matthew Isaac Cohen's evocative social history situates the Komedie Stamboel in the culture of empire and translocal flows of itinerant entertainment. He shows how the theater was used as a symbol of cross-ethnic integration in postcolonial Indonesia and as an emblem of Eurasian cultural accomplishment by Indische Nederlanders. A pioneering study of nineteenth-century Southeast Asian popular culture, The Komedie Stamboel: Popular Theater in Colonial Indonesia, 1891-1903 gives a new picture of the region's arts and entertainment through an exploration of the interplay of global culture, theatrical innovation, and the movement of people and ideas in colonial Southeast Asia.
