LEGENDS (of the Golden Arches) Event Program - PF 2025

Joe Paradise Lui & Merlynn Tong LEGENDS (of the Golden Arches)

Image: Matsu Photography

Produced by Performing Lines WA

Contents

Perth Festival acknowledges the Noongar people who continue to practise values, language, beliefs and knowledge on kwobidak boodjar. Noongar people remain the spiritual and cultural birdiyangara of this place and we honour and respect the caretakers and custodians and the vital role Noongar people play for our community and our Festival to flourish. We also acknowledge all First Nations people, whose contributions make our Festival culturally and artistically richer. Our hearts are happy that you are here, on the traditional lands of Whadjuk, part of the Bibbulmun nation and its people. Perth Festival Noongar Advisory Circle Roma Yibiyung Winmar, Vivienne Binyarn Hansen, Richard Walley, Carol Innes, Barry McGuire & Mitchella Waljin Hutchins

2 Show details

4 A note from Merlynn Tong

6 A note from Joe Paradise Lui

8 An interview with the creators

16 Credits

18 Biographies

24 Acknowledgements

Show details

Joe Paradise Lui & Merlynn Tong LEGENDS (of the Golden Arches)

AUSTRALIA World Premiere A Perth Festival Commission Fri 21 – Mon 24 Feb

Studio Underground, State Theatre Centre of WA Yandilup/Northbridge

Duration 85mins

Fri 8pm Sat 3 & 8pm

Sun 3pm Mon 7pm

Auslan Sat 22 Feb 8pm Tactile tour and audio description Sat 22 Feb 3pm Join us after the 8pm show on Sat 22 Feb for a Q&A session. Hear directly from the artists and creators of the work. Latecomers only admitted at a suitable break in the performance. Contains loud noises, haze, flashing lights, adult themes, sexual references and frequent coarse language.

A note from Merlynn Tong

The hungry ghost festival in Singapore is a boisterous time. Loud, colourful live stage performances called GeTai ( 歌台 or ‘song stages’) would pop up across every suburb. Performers would wear glittery, out of this world costumes, they would sing and dance – all to entertain the hungry ghosts, back for the month to visit the living. In fact, the front row of seats were always left empty for the spirits. As a child, I always tried to get as close to the stage as I could. These performances of outrageous worship and entertainment for the underworld mesmerised me. It feels unreal that as an adult, through LEGENDS , I now get to re-encounter and reimagine GeTai, the afterlife and subsequently re-examine my own deep- seated evolving beliefs around my own culture and its traditions. There is no one I would rather go on this journey with than Joe Paradise Lui. Our incredible rehearsal director Marcel Dorney introduced us years ago for the development of a new work. On our long walks to and from work each day, we uncovered many uncanny similarities, including our Singaporean background, being artists, going to the same

Image: Liv Morison

university, our grandfather’s history and, crucially, our similar obsession for delicious food. What entailed was years of eating much deliciousness across the country, hours upon hours of conversation, many moments of mending broken hearts and swapping joys and ultimately the formation of a deep friendship that I treasure endlessly. In LEGENDS we harness our friendship – our similarities, our differences, our triumphs and our heartaches – to bring you with us into a kaleidoscopic version of our underworld. We have gathered an astonishing team of artists for this work, and I cannot wait to share their genius with you. Hopefully, a few of our ancestors and past loved ones will also join us in the front row.

A note from Joe Paradise Lui

It wasn’t until the re nao ( 热闹 – commonly translated as ‘bustling’, but in reality a unique and overwhelming blend of cymbals, drums, mourning, wailing, incense and wide-eyed statues of garishly painted gods) of my formative cultural experiences was cut off from me that I truly began to love them and want to know them. This sense of yearning for a once- common-thing-now-lost is a migrant experience, as unfortunate as it is universal. Years after sealing away cultural practices that I saw as quaint and retrograde, and after a career of searching for artistic expression in its most radical and experimental forms, it has been a joy to find myself sifting through half-remembered prayers and half-performed rituals, in search of bridges between who I was, who I am and who I would like to be. My relationship with Merlynn Tong has meant many things – deep and poignant sharing, fellowship as working artists, belly laughs and so, so many great meals. But most importantly, it has been an unlocking of the person I was for the first 18 – 20 years of my life. It has allowed me to finally celebrate things I never thought I would ever want to celebrate and

Image: Liv Morison

properly mourn the things I left behind all those years ago on the corner of Leach Highway and Vahland Avenue. Thank you so much for coming to this work – for allowing me to share the cliché and complexity of yearning for a lost tradition with you. It is my great hope that you too might see and feel some of the bridges that link you to your own past – and laugh at the ridiculous lengths Merlynn and I took to get to ours. And while I’ve got you, give it up for the amazing creative team that helped us get here. The greatest privilege of making art is curating the artists you get to work with. There are loves and relationships here, both old and new, and I am so humbled by everything they’ve brought to this work. I am so excited you get to bask in their ridiculous talent and ability.

An interview with the creators Tell us about the show Merlynn: LEGENDS shares the story of two friends at a traditional Chinese funeral for both their grandparents. There are gods. There is the Chinese mythical underworld and there’s hell theme parks. Joe: LEGENDS starts off at a traditional Chinese funeral and then progresses through all the different layers of Chinese hell – making pitstops along the way for roast duck and burgers. LEGENDS is an examination of the tension between preserving our cultural heritage and traditions, and resisting the more oppressive or conservative elements of them. Merlynn: So we celebrate and challenge these components of our culture and also explore what ‘home’ means with humour and care.

Can you explain why design is such an important feature of the work? Joe: In the kind of white Australian that Merlynn and I have adopted as our home, religion and real life seem to occupy these very separate spheres. So spiritually and the way we conduct our everyday business kind of happen in separate spaces, and that has an implication not just in life but in aesthetics and in the world around us and our public spaces. Whereas in the world that we come from, spiritually is everywhere in life and so the same gods that created the universe are in direct control of like your grades or whether or not you’ll win the lottery. And so again, that also has an impact on aesthetics. We’ve grown up in this place where the characters that we see on our altars and in our temples are the same characters that we see in comic books and theme parks and on the street. And so, there is this sense of this street spirituality that has an aesthetic that is about a look, a style and a sound and a way of being that we really are excited to bring to the stage. That really isn’t normally seen here.

What do you love about LEGENDS ? Joe: I think what I love the most about the work is that it’s kind of like heavy and explores a lot of difficult subject matter and thinks deeply about art and culture and where we are as people and migration. But it also has this deeply ridiculous, very silly side that I find so heartwarming and poignant. And I think the juxtaposition of those things coming at each other almost non-stop throughout the work makes for something unique in terms of what it’s making you think about and how it’s making you feel. Merlynn: I also love the content that we explore in the work. Because not only have I not personally made a work like that before, I don’t think I’ve actually seen this kind of content or this kind of aesthetic on Australian stages before. So, getting to be part of a dynamic team that makes this work is really, really exciting and I can’t wait to see the production.

Merlynn: And actually the existence of this street spirituality is quite literal in Singapore. To the point where there’s a place called Haw Par Villa, which is like this hell theme park, I kid you not. Like actually a theme park of the Chinese 18 levels of hell that you bring children to. Where it’s like: ‘Oh look this man’s tongue is being cut off’ and ‘that person’s being boiled in oil’. And it’s just like part of everyday life. And also everywhere you’re going there’s always a Chinese funeral happening – it’s really common. I mean it looks so a part of the world and not like a funeral that when I was in Singapore with a crew from Australia doing a film, they started like wandering into the funeral to have a feast because there was just food everywhere. Joe: There’s food, it’s out, I guess it looks like a buffet maybe? Merlynn: Yeah! It looks like a celebration. And it is celebratory. So those are the kind of specific feelings and the specific vibe that we’re trying to bring into the work. Joe: Which is why the design of the work isn’t just representational of an idea or a set, it is embedded in the very meaning of the work and the aesthetic – how it looks, how it sounds, how it feels is so crucial to what we’re trying to describe and what we’re trying to put on stage.

Image: Liv Morison

Tell us about your collaboration

Joe: So I think what I’ve enjoyed the most in terms of working together is it’s just felt like we’ve been hanging out. So we talk, we eat, we laugh, maybe we work a little bit, we eat, we laugh some more and then kind of through that has come this really organic kind of writing relationship that is really at once kind of fun and free flowing, but also we’re kind of rigorous about structural and storytelling things in the same way. So it’s felt really natural but also really fun. Merlynn: Yeah absolutely and I feel like we have the same kind of discipline when it comes to rigour – and we approach work very similarly. But also I think our skill sets are actually quite opposite in some ways and complement each other really well. I’ve never written like this before. I’ve mostly written on my own. So this has felt really joyous and there’s an ease and a flow to it. I can’t wait to see how that energy translates to the stage.

Joe: On my end I mainly devise, so writing with just two people is actually quite a low number of people for me and so this is kind of like me being able to more precisely sculpt a work, which is also kind of an interesting new space for me. Merlynn: It’s so funny because it’s like a new process for both of us but it felt easy and correct the entire time. Who are you making the work for? Merlynn: I think the work is for people who belong to this specific type of world that we’re describing, creating – who have before seen it on stage, much less on an Australian stage. And it’s also for the people who’ve never encountered a world like that. It’s an invitation for them to have a sneak peek into this very specific, very clear visual world that we have that just doesn’t exist in Australia

Joe: I think also zooming out beyond the specific cultural aesthetic and invitation, I think there’s something in the work that speaks to that feeling of bittersweet pain and joy of all of history and culture reacting against individual tiny moments of life. And I think there’s a lot of people that feel that particular way about the world – especially at the moment. And I think this work is pretty much made for that temperament of person, which I think is far more common than maybe we expect. Basically, if you like Everything Everywhere All At Once come see this show. Merlynn: You’ll love this! Also I think maybe it’s for the Chinese diaspora across Australia and hopefully across different countries too.

Credits

Special Thanks Clare Watson Jessica Darlow Jeremy Smith, Joo Tan, Nick Glen, Cecile Lucas and the team at Performing Lines Melanie Julien-Martial, Jenna Robyn, Ben Nelson, Riley Billyeald Katie Moore and the team at the Black Swan Production Facility Martina Murray and the team at Melbourne Theatre Company Felipe Reynolds/Airena – Bao Gong Inflatable Design & Fabrication Jacob Shears (set electrics) Jodi Hope (additional sewing/scenic on Hei Bei) Acknowledgements This project has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Major Festivals Initiative (MFI), managed by the Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body, in association with the Confederation of Australian International Arts Festivals Inc., commissioned by Perth Festival, RISING and Brisbane Festival.

Co-Creators, Co-Writers, Co-Directors & Performers Joe Paradise Lui & Merlynn Tong Set Designer

Cherish Marrington Costume Designer Nicole Marrington Assistant Costume Maker Rose Finlay Video Artist & AV Designer Wendy Yu Lighting Designer Kate Baldwin Composer Joe Paradise Lui Outside Eye & Rehearsal Director Marcel Dorney Production Manager Catherine O’Donoghue Assistant Stage Manager Finn McLeish Head Technician (Perth) Matthew Erren Volunteer Interns Chelsey Catena & Rena Sangawa Set Construction & Scenic Black Swan Production Facility Harry Dowling Stage Manager

Additional project investment provided by Creative Australia.

The Creative Development period of LEGENDS (of the Golden Arches) was supported by Sydney Festival, and project funding via the WA Government through the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries and the Australian Government through Creative Australia.

The initial script development was supported by Black Swan State Theatre Company.

Karaoke Musical Work Original Song Title 一支小雨傘 YI ZHI XIAO YU SAN Sub-Author 黃敏 (Huang Min) Original Publisher 光美文化事業股份有限公司 Sub Publisher Rock Music Publishing Co., Ltd.

Produced by Performing Lines WA

Biographies

Joe Paradise Lui Co-Creator, Co-Writer, Co-Director, Performer & Composer

Cherish Marrington Set Designer

Cherish is an artist and a designer for theatre and film based in Perth. She graduated in Fine Arts at Central Institute of Technology in 2010 and went on to graduate in Design for Live Production at WAAPA in 2013. Since then she has designed for a range of theatre and film productions. Her film work includes The Dustwalker (2017) and It Only Takes a Night (2021). She has worked continuously in theatre since 2013, her most recent projects being Unnatural (2024) and LEGENDS (of the Golden Arches) (2025) and Blue (2025). Sensitive to narrative and atmosphere, her stage work is known for its subtle physical evocation of the text. Her own creative work investigates ‘horror-erotica’ and its relationship to human experience and the natural world. In 2019 she became director of Chinoiserie Fine Art. and recently co-founded Carpark Projects, a gallery and project space fostering experimental art, performance and music.

Joe is a submerging artist and undisputed winner of the 2013 Spirit of the Fringe Award. It has won no awards since. Joe is a founding member of Renegade Productions. Within its aegis it creates experimental theatre and performance works. Joe is also a freelance director, writer and a sound and lighting designer. Its most recent professional directing work was as Assistant Director on A Streetcar Named Desire at Melbourne Theatre Company. Its most recent independent directing work was Whitesnake3000 , presented at Co3.

Merlynn Tong Co-Creator, Co-Writer, Co-Director & Performer

Merlynn is a writer and actor. Some of her other playwriting credits include Golden Blood (Griffin Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company), Antigone (adaptation, Queensland Theatre, Mercury Theatre UK) and Blue Bones (Playlab Productions). Some of her stage performances include The Poison of Polygamy (La Boite Theatre & Sydney Theatre Company), Golden Blood (Griffin Theatre), Blue Bones (Playlab Productions) and White Pearl (Sydney Theatre Company & National Theatre of Parramatta). Some of her screen performances include Top of the Lake: China Girl (BBC & Sundance Films), In Our Blood (Hoodlum Entertainment) and Nautilus (Disney). Her one-woman-show Blue Bones by Playlab Productions, that she also performed in, has won six Matilda Awards including the Lord Mayor Award for Best New Australian Work, Best Mainstage Production and Best Female Actor in a Leading Role. Her work Golden Blood was short-listed for a Victorian Premier Literary Award, NSW Premier’s Literary Award, as well as Sydney Theatre Award (Best New Australian Work).

Nicole Marrington Costume Designer

Nicole is a Perth-based costume designer, coordinator and maker for theatre, performing arts and film. A recent selection of costume design work includes Manifest (STRUT Dance), Beneath the Music (Performing Lines), Song Circle (Perth Festival), Las Hormigas/The Ants (PICA), At the End of the Land (Too Close to the Sun Theatre), SITU-8:CITY (STRUT Dance), Homeward Bound (Lazy Yarns) and The Ugly (Renegade Productions) as well as Savage Grace and JULIA (Steamworks Arts).

Rose Finlay Assistant Costume Maker

Rose is a Perth-based freelance costume maker whose career began in the fashion industry, where she honed a keen eye for design and technical craftsmanship. Now, engaging and working across all different areas of live theatre and film – from ballet to opera to fashion pieces for film, her work fuses creativity, functionality and a deep understanding of performance needs. Rose is dedicated to the craft of costume construction, finding joy in the process of turning concepts into wearable works of art, and embracing the magic of collaboration to make each costume not just a piece of clothing, but a key element of storytelling.

Wendy Yu Video Artist & AV Designer

Marcel Dorney Outside Eye & Rehearsal Director

Wendy is an Australian interdisciplinary artist working within dance and new media design. Her work often uses elements of choreographic composition, like choreographing and motion capturing dance in 3D, to tell compelling stories designed specifically for public space. She has presented works in numerous projection festivals in the US and Europe, as well as presented large scale works of projects as part of solo exhibitions. Within theatre, she has worked to create narrative storytelling for spaces such as the Darlinghurst Theatre, Malthouse Theatre and The Bushnell Dance Theatre. Wendy has won the International Chinese Outstanding Youth Award for her work Acts of Holding Dance in 2023 and the Think Youth Shanghai International Digital Creation, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, New Media Arts Division in 2022. Her continuing ambition is to further the mastery of storytelling through new media art, through refining and expanding skills within the fields of generative programming, creative coding, movement choreography and projection mapping.

An award-winning playwright, director, composer and lecturer, Marcel is a founding member and co-artistic director of Melbourne-based theatre company, Elbow Room, whose 18 premiere productions since 2008 include We Get It (Melbourne Theatre Company‘s NEON Festival 2015), Prehistoric (Brisbane Festival 2014, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2018) and Joe Paradise Lui’s Enlightenment (Darebin Arts/Studio Underground, 2021). Marcel’s work as a writer has been commissioned, developed and produced by Queensland Theatre, Malthouse Theatre, Merrigong Theatre Company, Hothouse Theatre, La Boite, Griffin Theatre, Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse, Artslink and the Next Wave Festival, and published by Playlab Press. He holds a Master in Performance Creation from the University of Melbourne and has worked extensively as a dramaturg and script consultant. Marcel’s awards include Best Director and Best Ensemble (Ind.), 2011 Green Room Awards ( After All This ); 2012 Gold Matilda ( Fractions ); Best Writing, 2014 GRA, ( Prehistoric ); Best Ensemble (Ind.), 2021 GRA ( Enlightenment ).

Kate Baldwin Lighting Designer

Harry Dowling Production Manager

Kate is a disabled, Japanese-Australian lighting designer, who lives on Wangal Country and works predominantly across the lands of the Gadigal and Burramattagal Peoples. Since graduating from NIDA in 2019, some of her credits as Lighting Designer have included Lose to Win (Belvoir), Nothing (National Theatre of Parramatta), Albion (New Ghosts Theatre Company, Secret House & Seymour Centre), Top Coat (Sydney Theatre Company), The Box Show (Critical Stages Touring & Junkyard Beats), Guards at the Taj (National Theatre of Parramatta), Chewing Gum Dreams (Green Door Theatre Company & Red Line Productions) and seven methods of killing kylie jenner (Darlinghurst Theatre Company & Green Door Theatre Company). She completed a residency at Sydney Theatre Company as Design Associate (Lighting) in 2021 and 2022. She was also a part of Ka-llective, which had residencies with PACT and Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in 2021 and 2022.

Harry is a freelance production manager based in Naarm/Melbourne. He has worked in production and stage management roles on productions for organisations including Malthouse Theatre, RISING, Sydney Festival, Australian Theatre for Young People, Belvoir St Theatre, Yirramboi and broadly across the independent sector. Harry also co-founded independent theatre company Fever103 Theatre, where he has produced new Australian works at fortyfivedownstairs, Meat Market and Northcote Town Hall. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre & Performance from Monash University.

Catherine O’Donoghue Stage Manager

Catherine is a stage and production manager based in Perth. After completing studies at WAAPA (Stage Management, 2019), she has worked in stage management roles for a wide variety of organisations including Spare Parts Puppet Theatre, Performing Lines, Sensorium Theatre, The Last Great Hunt, WA Youth Theatre Company and Barking Gecko. Her recent credits as stage manager include Spare Parts Puppet Theatre’s Hare Brain, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge and Pillow Fight , Sensorium Theatre’s Wonderbox and The Last Great Hunt’s The Hypotheticals .

Finn McLeish Assistant Stage Manager

Finn is a freelance theatre manager and creative based in Naarm. Finn’s freelance work has included production and stage management roles on productions for organisations including Melbourne Theatre Company, Red Stitch, Fever103 Theatre, Little Ones Theatre, Melbourne Shakespeare Company and broadly across the independent sector. Recent production credits include stage manager for Your Name Means Dream (Red Stitch), the last train to madeline (Fever103 Theatre), Flake (Red Stitch) and assistant stage manager for Topdog/Underdog (Melbourne Theatre Company), The Vampire Lesbians of Sodom (Little Ones Theatre), Julius Caesar (Melbourne Shakespeare Company), Far Away (Patalog Theatre) and Crocodile (Spinning Plates Co.).

Matthew Erren Head Technician

Matthew is an emerging lighting designer and associate lighting designer. He graduated from the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts, majoring in Lighting Design (2019). Matthew has spent his professional career designing for theatre, dance and exhibitions. He was nominated for the PAWA Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for his work on Catch 22 (Amelia Sagrabb Projects, Blue Room Theatre). Recent credits as lighting designer include Made in Boorloo, 24 Hour Play Generator and The Comprehensive A-Z of Missing Persons Australia (WAYTCo), Ignorance was Bliss (Enneagon Movement) and A Love Letter to the Nightingale (Elham Eshraghian-Haakansson, The Blue Room Theatre). As an associate lighting designer, Matthew has worked on Brothers Wreck (Mark Howett, Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company) and Dirty Birds (Paul Jackson, Black Swan State Theatre Company), Rusalka (WA Opera) and RENT National Tour (LPD Productions).

Performing Lines Producer

Performing Lines is a national organisation that produces provocative contemporary performance by Australia’s most audacious independent artists. They curate a portfolio of work that is propelled by pressing questions and new ways of seeing the world, and champion the unconventional, the marginal, the rebellious and the new. The organisation’s purpose is to champion risk and to ensure that the breadth and plurality of Australia’s creative potential is represented and celebrated. Performing Lines is led by Executive Producer and CEO Simon Wellington, who manages teams in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne and Hobart, with a network of producers and presenters around the country and the world. Based in Boorloo/Perth, Performing Lines WA is a dynamic team of five people working out of the King Street Arts Centre. In recent years, the company has produced several successful world premiere seasons for Perth Festival, including Black Brass, Children of the Sea, Galup and Slow Burn, Together (2021), Mary Stuart (2022) and Equations of a Falling Body (2023).

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