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The Guardian
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Legends (of the Golden Arches) review – a giddy, witty journey into a phantasmagoric hell
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.
The National
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
Tunisian film Promised Sky takes an unflinching look at undocumented individuals
What makes a film French, Tunisian or any other nationality? That is one question occupying the mind of Erige Sehiri, director of Promised Sky, which has just been unveiled at Cannes Film Festival. 'When you come to Cannes, you also represent a country,' Sehiri tells The National, speaking on the Unifrance terrace just yards from the buzzy Croisette. 'It's not just about the director.' In this case, Promised Sky is being recognised as a Tunisian film, despite being a French-Tunisian co-production, with money from Qatar and support from the Doha Film Institute. 'I agree with that because it's a Tunisian story, shot in Tunisia,' Sehiri continues. 'It's mainly Tunisian technicians and I'm a Tunisian director also. Marie, the film's central character, is played by a French actress, Tunisian people are secondary characters and West Africans are main characters. But they all represent Tunisia!' Sehiri herself was born and raised in France, after her Tunisian parents emigrated there. The migrant experience is very much at the core of Promised Sky, a heartfelt, honest look at the undocumented. The story takes place in Tunis, following Marie (Aissa Maiga), an Ivorian pastor whose dilapidated home has become a shelter for others. Among them are young mother Naney (Debora Christelle Lobe Naney) and the resolute student Jolie (Laetitia Ky). A former journalist, who brought a similar semi-documentary approach to her well-received 2021 film Under The Fig Trees, Sehiri says her own media connections led to the story. 'I had coffee with a journalist from Ivory Coast who was based in Tunis, and she worked at a small radio station. I didn't have the idea of the film then. But we talked, and I said: 'How do you make a living working in a radio station in Tunisia?' And she said: 'I have another job, as a pastor.' "I didn't even know it's a job. I didn't even know a woman can be a pastor. No Tunisian goes to Evangelical churches, they're not allowed.' Co-writing with Anna Ciennik and Malika Cecile Louati, Sehiri was particularly inspired by the notion of "the other". 'In Tunisia, the communities of people coming from sub-Saharan countries, from North Africa, are called 'the Africans'.' Indeed, Marie's landlord refers to her 'African cake' when she's baking, only to be told that he too is African. 'It's not necessarily a bad intention, but it's something we say all the time, to say 'the other'. But we are the other," says Sehiri. Sehiri began to think of the way fear surrounds stories of immigrants. 'We hear that France will be invaded by African, Arabian immigrants and so on,' she says, pointing out that the statistics say otherwise. 'Twenty per cent of immigrants from Africa migrate to Europe. Eighty per cent of them migrate within Africa from one country to another, and that also gives you another perspective. This is far away from the image that we get in Europe. It's a global issue, how to treat migrants and how not to treat them.' Bringing the film to Cannes, where it was selected to open the Un Certain Regard sidebar, a strand that features films directed by Hollywood stars Kristen Stewart and Scarlett Johansson this year, was also a huge honour. 'I feel that is the best thing that happened to the film,' Sehiri says. 'It was unexpected.' It also puts her in good company, with fellow Tunisian directors Kaouther Ben Hania (who was in Cannes with Four Daughters) and Meryam Joobeur (whose film Who Do I Belong To played at the Berlinale). Certainly, it's been a phenomenal time for female filmmakers from her country. 'I am part of the movement. I'm very happy seeing the reaction of the Arab media, which is not just about Tunisia but the whole region, how we portray ourselves, how we make films," Sehiri says. "It's really moving because I was born in France. I grew up there, and then suddenly I'm part of a movement from the Arab region.' A fan of such naturalistic-leaning directors as Ken Loach, Andrea Arnold and Sean Baker, the Oscar-winning director of Anora, Sehiri is now plotting her next move. 'I have another project that I haven't talked about at all. I really hope to do a triptych after Under the Fig Trees and Promised Sky. I would love to have a third film of people I found being stereotyped or invisible. And I'll say it will be young male Arab characters," she says. As for Promised Sky, how does she anticipate the reaction from those back home? 'Hopefully, it will open their eyes a bit,' she smiles. 'Just a bit.' The Cannes Film Festival runs until Saturday
