IT STARTED out not as a play but as a book – a book David Yip decided he could not bring himself to write while his father was alive.
So he locked the old man’s memories away in a chest in the back of his mind until it became time to tell them.
Now reincarnated into Gold Mountain, they are told through polarised forms of expression – the ancient art of storytelling combined with multimedia wizardry.
While the 60-minute show is only loosely based on Yip’s father’s stories, themselves often tall tales, the emotions that surround them feel starkly honest.
The ex-Brookside actor has spoken in the past of his difficult relationship with his father, and his struggle to understand the man that sired him is central to the play.
It is presented as a dialogue between father (Yip) and son (Eugene Salleh), relating the elder man’s life story as a mixture of fantasy and brutal truth.
Scenes shift between China and Liverpool, the backdrop projected on to two screens as well as well as on umbrellas, fabric and other props the two performers are holding.
A pair of giant fans show the face of Mary, the young man’s mother who falls for the polite Chinese man, always dressed in a suit despite her own (white) family’s rejection.
Her smile that could “cheer up rain” is soon wiped away, however, by the pressures of coping with seven children and a husband who gambles away their laundry business.
Yip’s 37 years of acting experience come to the fore in his restrained portrayal of the father, from an optimistic young man to a bewildered pensioner wandering around the streets in his pyjamas.
Salleh, meanwhile, takes on many different roles well, and there is real chemistry between the two actors.
Only once or twice do the multimedia elements – ably produced by French Canadian company Les Deux Mondes – encroach on the storytelling.
The Unity Theatre prides itself on giving a platform to challenging, experimental work and Gold Mountain fits into both categories.
It is a frank and engaging piece, which is sure to outlive its two-week run in this venue.
GOLD Mountain is at the Unity Theatre until October 16.
