Baling Talk

“Baling” was created by Five Arts Centre on 3 April 2016 (Sunday). Baling Talk is a special theatre compares to others theatre that I watched before. It is because Baling Talk is a documentary performance that reconstructs these historic negotiations between Tunku Abdul Rahman, David Marshall and Chin Peng.

 Baling Talk is about a debate and shrewd political maneuvering of Malayan Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, Chief Minister of Singapore David Marshall and Chin Peng of the Communist Party of Malaya. They tried to end up the war when the revolutionary war known as the Malayan Emergency had been going on for seven years. They fought for independent with the British government in 1955. Malayan Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman asked Chin Peng surrender with a few of conditions. The conditions are Chin Peng them could have their own party, freedom and they had a choice to return their hometown but they need to surrender After surrender, all of them got the freedom but it was still under Malayan government controlled since Chin Peng was a communist. However, Chin Peng believed that they could fight for independent without any condition especially “surrender”. Through few times of the debate, in the end Chin Peng and Tunku Abdul Rahman did not reach consensus. After Malayan independent, Chin Peng exiled to somewhere else and did not return to Malaysia again.

I gained a lot of knowledge and more understand about Malaysia history through by this theatre. It is because I did not realize that the process of Malaysia fought for independent had this kind of debate and Chin Peng exiled to somewhere else. Even though I am very proud of Malaysia win for independent from the British government and we get more freedom than before, I am also very proud that Chin Peng his courage and persistence his individualism.

During the theatre performance, we are changing our seat from upstairs to the downstairs when we seat on the floor. The reason of change the seat is because the director tries to use this kind of way to present different angle have different interpretation about the meaning of story. Moreover, the setting of design was depended on the performers’ idea.

I am very appreciated to join this theatre because I would not join this kind of theatre before. It is because this theatre creates some interaction with audience instead of the performers performing on the stage.