Review: The Book of Mountains and Seas (Pleasance Courtyard)

Yilong Liu’s emotional play about food, family, and Yelp

Customer review writing doesn’t get enough love. These are people who take time out of their lives to keep strangers on the internet informed on everything from hotels to dog food, and rarely do they get thanked. (Sometimes their reviewing spirals into a seven-year performing arts criticism career, but I digress.) Even so, most people would not consider it “serious writing”. That is, except for Archie in Yilong Liu’s The Book of Mountains and Seas. When twenty-something New Yorker Archie (Charles Hsu) passes away, all that is left of his online presence are his 179 restaurant reviews on Yelp. Two years later, his father Raymond (Eric Elizaga) comes to New York determined to try every restaurant with Archie’s then-boyfriend Andrew (Ephraim Birney).

It may be impossible, but the more we learn about Archie, Raymond, and these reviews, the more we discover that it was never about eating at these restaurants. Liu finds a unique angle to explore grief, specifically about how grieving in different ways can push people apart and bring them together. The question of what we owe to our loved ones after we die hangs over proceedings, how much of ourselves we get to take with us when we die. Hsu lingers and lounges in the background, his character speaking only through his reviews and occasionally through Raymond or Andrew. He is within arm’s reach, but he can’t answer questions or offer comfort. All he can do is tell you where to find the best sliders. It goes to show that less is more, and as an audience, we begin to miss a character we never got to know.

Photo Credit: Blumenfield Mccollum

The staging revolves around a set-up for a photo shoot, a literal reference to Andrew’s career as a photographer, but also in reference to the absent photographs deleted from Archie’s phone. It is a perfectly simple adaptation with strong performances from the whole cast, who bring out the best in Liu’s script and know how to pull on the heartstrings. For fans of the humour and heart of Little Miss Sunshine, The Book of Mountains and Seas is an absolute gem. The name comes from a classic of Chinese mythology, but it is only a matter of time before this play is a classic in its own right. Five stars.

Whispers from the Crowd: "Fab - for a start. Little techical interlude was well-recovered. I immediately thought it was a true story, I wish it was. Very well put together." "Endearing - I hope it gets a bigger audience."

The Book of Mountains and Seas will play at Pleasance Courtyard 13:05 until the 25th of August