In the program notes to Legends (of the Golden Arches), performer and co-creator Joe Paradise Lui writes of the “yearning for a once-common-thing-now-lost”: the migrant experience writ large, “as unfortunate as it is universal”. It’s an idea that could also function as this show’s organising principle, grappling as it does with the long tendrils of the past – with legacy, culture and the pain of individuation.
Legends starts, as all theatre does, with ritual: in this case, the folding and burning of paper as a funerary rite. Fellow creator and performer Merlynn Tong is contentedly performing the ceremony for a recently passed relative, but Lui refuses to participate on moral grounds. This slight disagreement between friends soon spins out into a larger discussion of tradition and observance, of the expectations and cultural burdens they endure as members of the Singaporean-Chinese diaspora. Lui finds it all rather vague and problematic, and if Tong secretly agrees, she sees no harm in humouring the gods for the sake of some connection to her heritage.
Lui’s central issue is with the seemingly capitalist leanings of these rituals, meant to provide ancestors with luxury and comfort in the afterlife. Tong says they’re designed to appease the gods, so they might shepherd the souls of their lost relatives through Diyu, or Chinese hell. Lui thinks this is worse: a bribing of celestial figures who should by nature be above such corruption. Both friends conjure gods to boost their arguments, which only results in more confusion (although happily not for the audience).
Eventually, Lui and Tong descend into Diyu – a wondrous phantasmagoria of inflatable gods, neon-bright costumes and dodgy karaoke – on a mission of self-realisation and forgiveness. There they encounter the Heibai Wuchang, two deities that represent the undying loyalty of friendship, as well as the God of War, Guan Yu and the Goddess of Mercy, Guanyin. These beings mock them, threaten them and, in the process, maybe cure them of their doubts and hesitancies.
There is a giddy, self-aware sense of abandon to Legends (of the Golden Arches) that disguises a very real and serious examination of beliefs and spiritual philosophy. Lui and Tong are clever and astute theatre-makers with a firm grip on theme and metaphor, who are unafraid of folding painful biographical details into their material while simultaneously taking the piss out of themselves and each other.
Tong’s loss of her mother to suicide and Lui’s decision to evade Singaporean military service for a career in the arts give the work an undeniable depth and poignancy – but their maximalist approach to stagecraft, abundance of wit and some wild imagery helps avoid mawkishness or didacticism. References are broadly sourced– from McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish to the 14th century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms – but precisely targeted. The production feels a little unhinged, even when it’s carefully calibrated.
Cherish Marrington’s set is constantly surprising and Nicole Marrington’s costumes are hilarious in their blinking, garish excess. Kate Baldwin’s lighting design augments the swift mood changes and Wendy Yu’s superb video and AV design is totally transportive – although on opening night technical problems with the projections caused a significant delay. Lui’s own compositions are eclectic and savvy.
While the tenderness of their rapport gives the show its heart and complexity, as performers Lui and Tong are slightly mismatched; Tong is sharper and more controlled than Lui, whose physicality can be awkward and unpolished. Vocally, she is stronger and more richly modulated. But Lui’s probing intellectualism and crackling wit is crucial to the show’s success. Together they make a winning team.
Lofty ideals constantly fall victim to quotidian pressures in Legends (of the Golden Arches), and the result is a kind of toggling between modes – the exalted smashing up against the squalid at every turn. This provides much of the humour, but also underlines a central thesis: any war we wage with the gods must be fought not on the battlefields of honour, but in the streets, bedrooms and kitchenettes of our everyday lives. And sometimes, a dead relative is just hankering for a burger.
Legends (of the Golden Arches) is on at Melbourne Theatre Company’s Southbank Theatre until 28 June, as part of Rising festival.
