Ellis Pearson spent 40 years as a performer, originally based in his native South Africa where he formed one of the first multiracial theatre companies. But when he emigrated to Australia with his family, he took up a teaching post at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, where he worked for seven years.

Now, the 64-year-old has returned to acting in the lead role of Spare Puppet Theatre's adaptation of Shaun Tan's book The Arrival.

"It's in my blood," he says.

The character, he says, is "right up my street" - although Aki, the man he's playing, is considerably younger than he is, it doesn't matter on stage, since it's a silent play - "physical theatre, visual stuff" - akin to much of what he was doing earlier.

In The Arrival, he says, "A refugee who is in some danger leaves his country to go to another to try to start a life and bring his family, his wife and little daughter..

Aki doesn't have an easy time of it - he's a stranger, he's alone, he doesn't speak the language and not everybody he meets is friendly or welcoming. Will he find a place to live? Will he find a job? Will he make friends? And will he ever see his family again?

In addition to Pearson as Aki, the other actors are Alicia Osyka, Adrienne Patterson and Shirley van Sanden and the other characters are both humans and puppets. They're brought to life in a world of floating ships, alien objects and weird animals designed by Jiri Zmitko based on the illustrations in Tan's book, which was inspired by stories from his friends, historical narratives and also his father, who immigrated to Western Australia from China in the early 1960s.

And, Pearson says, also helping to tell the story in the absence of dialogue is "the wonderful soundtrack created by Lee Buddle" as well as projections on a screen.

The Arrival is, Pearson says, "a real feast for the ears and eyes". He says without speech, the actors communicate "not so much much in gesture and not in charades, they use their whole body to communicate with each other ... there's a lot of movement, a lot of coming and going."

The Arrival is touring for three months. This will be Pearson's first time in Canberra.

He points out that The Arrival is a story with considerable contemporary relevance.

"There are many countries with a refugee crisis - it's such a big thing in the world."

But it's not all serious, he says, there's both humour and intensity in the story as it unfolds for just under an hour.