In Joe Paradise Lui and Merlynn Tong’s Legends (of the Golden Arches) the two playwrights, performers and co-directors offer us a ‘funeral club’ instead The Breakfast Club, in which mourning rituals gone wrong thrust our protagonists – Lui (Enlightenment) and Tong (Golden Blood) playing stylised versions of themselves – literally into Diyu, the Chinese Hell.
The production opens with the pair – both of them members of the Chinese Singaporean diaspora living and working in Australia – arguing over tradition. Following the joint funerals of their respective grandfathers, Tong wants Lui to sit up with her all night and fold paper money, which will then be ritually burned as an offering to appease the numerous Kings of Hell. Doing so will ensure their grandfathers’ souls can pass through Diyu and journey to the penultimate step in the afterlife: passage over the Golden Bridge to Nirvana (thus being released from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth) or the Silver Bridge, which leads to Heaven.
Lui is ideologically opposed to the tradition, noting that the burnt money – and similarly, burning elaborate paper models of cars, iPhones and even an apartment block – is essentially a form of bribery, a way for the living to corrupt Hell’s allegedly incorruptible Magistrates.
Given the close bond between Tong and Lui, their argument soon descends into a savage – and savagely funny – lambasting of one another’s previous theatrical works. Tong criticises Lui’s productions for being all about sex, Lui ripostes by claiming that Tong always, predictably, puts herself and her self-professed painful childhood at the centre of her work.
Their arguments are catty, clever and lead into fiercer debates about myth, religion, heritage and belief – a story battle instead of a rap battle, in which Wendy Yu’s exquisite animations, projected onto a sheet hanging at the rear of the initially narrow stage, are deployed to illustrate the histories and half-remembered myths the pair use to bait and taunt one another.
The arrival of Lui’s Uber Eats order – pointedly, not the meal he ordered – marks a dramatic turning point in the narrative. An accidental blasphemy immediately thereafter sees the duo plunged into Hell, where the gods, demons and myths they were arguing about spring to vivid life – including a larger-then-life inflatable personification of the deified magistrate, Bao Gong, created by the late Felipe Reynolds (Airena), whose death is acknowledged in the production’s program notes.
As well as justifying the appearance of some truly spectacular set pieces (Cherish Marrington), props and costumes (Nicole Marrington), as well as more of Yu’s beautifully stylised animations, it’s at this point that Legends (of the Golden Arches) also takes a turn towards the serious – and also a rare and thankfully isolated moment of self-indulgence. Otherwise, Legends (of the Golden Arches) is a skilfully wrought and cleverly rendered work of art, successfully balancing knowing melodrama and wry critiques of Hell’s dramaturgy with moments of coruscating self-flagellation, seemingly genuine catharsis and painful truths laid bare. An opening night technical glitch briefly derailed proceedings, but didn’t impact on the energy of the performances or enjoyment of the production overall.
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Legends (of the Golden Arches) blends 5000 years of myth with the more recent lives and theatrical practices of its creators, resulting in a work that – in Tong’s own words from the program notes – allows her to ‘re-examine my own deep-seated evolving beliefs around my own culture and its traditions’. Lui similarly notes that the play creates ‘bridges between who I was, who I am, and who I would like to be’. Crossing that bridge as an audience member is to surrender to the charms of the play while simultaneously discovering bridges that connect to one’s own personal past – and which, perhaps for all, hopefully lead to a brighter future.
Legends (of the Golden Arches)
Produced by Performing Lines and presented by Melbourne Theatre Company as part of RISING
Co-Creators, co-Writers, co-Directors and Cast: Joe Paradise Lui and Merlynn Tong
Set Designer: Cherish Marrington
Costume Designer: Nicole Marrington
Lighting Designer: Kate Baldwin
Composer: Joe Paradise Lui
Video Artist and AV Designer: Wendy Yu
Outside Eye and Rehearsal Director: Marcel Dorney
Associate Lighting Designer and Head Technician: Matthew Erren
Tickets: $34 – $69
Legends (of the Golden Arches) is at Southbank Theatre, The Lawler from 5-28 June 2025 as part of RISING (4-15 June 2025)
