Legends (of the Golden Arches)

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‘Not only an emotional experience, but also a visual feast.’
Theatre Reviews Perth

This is rated 0 out of 5 stars

‘Razor-sharp, oscillating between laugh-out-loud moments and deep introspection.’

Perth Happening

This is rated 0 out of 5 stars

‘Theatre at its most inventive.’
Eat Live Escape

ABOUT THE SHOW

This funeral will be the death of them.

A rip-roaring ride plunging two best friends into the depths of the Chinese afterlife, LEGENDS vaults across genres, realities and theatrical convention with an infectious zest.

Co-created by Joe Paradise Lui and Merlynn Tong (Golden Blood), LEGENDS draws on the unique talents of many theatre artists from Australia’s Asian diaspora. It’s a powerful, deeply personal examination of the Chinese cultural experience and the enduring power of friendship, revealed through a hilarious yet subtly moving lens.

Merlynn and Joe are used to fiery clashes – but what old friends aren’t? As they spend a night holding vigil for their dead grandfathers, their conflicting attitudes towards traditional values grow more and more heated. Merlynn wants to preserve the rites of her forebears, while Joe thinks it’s all a load of superstition. But the lords of the Underworld have their own thoughts on all of this, and they’re going to drag our heroes beyond the grave to resolve their differences.

Produced by Performing Lines, LEGENDS (of the Golden Arches) has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Major Festivals Initiative (MFI), managed by 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. Additional project investment provided by Creative Australia. The initial script development was supported by Black Swan State Theatre Company.

A Performing Lines production

Presented with

Wheelchair Accessible
Hearing Assistance
Audio Described
Tactile Tour
Open Captioning
Closed Captioning

Performance Type	Performance Date(s)
Audio Described by Vision Australia	Saturday 21 June at 1.30pm Tuesday 24 June at 7pm
Tactile Tour at venue	Saturday 21 June at 1.30pm (Tactile tour commences at 12:30pm)
Open Captioning via screen	Saturday 28 June at 1.30pm
Closed Captioning via GoTheatrical App	Saturday 28 June at 2pm

Joe Paradise Lui

Co-Creator, Co-Writer, Co-Director & Performer, Composer

Merlynn Tong

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

Cherish Marrington

Set Designer

Nicole Marrington

Costume Designer

Kate Baldwin

Lighting Designer

Wendy Yu

Video Artist & AV Designer

Marcel Dorney

Outside Eye & Rehearsal Director

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Joe Paradise Lui

Co-Creator, Co-Writer, Co-Director & Performer, Composer

Joe Paradise Lui is a submerging artist and undisputed winner of the 2013 Spirit of the Fringe award.  It has won no awards since. Joe Lui is a founding member of Renegade Productions. Within its aegis it creates experimental theatre and performance works. Joe Lui 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 (Melbourne Theatre Company). Its most recent independent directing work was Whitesnake3000, presented at Co3.

Merlynn Tong

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

Merlynn Tong is a writer and actor. Some of her other playwriting credits include Golden Blood (Griffin Theatre/Sydney Theatre Company/Melbourne Theatre Company); an adaptation of Antigone (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 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. Golden Blood was shortlisted for a Victorian Premier's Literary Award, NSW Premier's Literary Award, as well as Sydney Theatre Award (Best New Australian Work).

Cherish Marrington

Set Designer

Cherish Marrington is an artist, and a designer for theatre and film based in Perth. Cherish 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. Recent theatre credits include Unnatural (2024) and Blue (2025). Her film credits include The Dustwalker (2017) and It Only Takes a Night (2021). 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.

Nicole Marrington

Costume Designer

Nicole Marrington is a Perth-based costume designer, coordinator and maker for theatre, performing arts and film. A recent selection of costume design work include 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); The Ugly (Renegade Productions) as well as Savage Grace and JULIA (Steamworks Arts).

Kate Baldwin

Lighting Designer

Kate Baldwin 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 include: Lose to Win (Belvoir); Nothing, Guards at the Taj (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);  Chewing Gum Dreams (Green Door Theatre Company and Red Line Productions); and seven methods of killing kylie jenner (Darlinghurst Theatre Company and 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.

Wendy Yu

Video Artist & AV Designer

Wendy Yu is an Australian interdisciplinary artis 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 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. Yu 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.

Marcel Dorney

Outside Eye & Rehearsal Director

An award-winning playwright, director, composer and lecturer, Marcel Dorney is a founding member and co-artistic director of Melbourne based theatre company, Elbow Room, whose eighteen 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. 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).

Get Directions

The Lawler

140 Southbank Boulevard

Southbank, Victoria 3006

ABOUT THE SHOW

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