Yann Martel’s 15 million copy promoting, Man Booker Prize-winning novel, Life of Pi, has already had an Oscar-winning, massive display screen adaptation by Ang Lee and now Lolita Chakrabarti’s stage model is embarking on a UK tour. With 5 Olivier Awards and three Tony Awards, expectations are excessive.
It’s the Seventies, and 17 yr outdated Piscine Molitor ‘Pi’ Patel (Divesh Subaskaran) is a zoo-keeper’s son from Pondicherry. The zoo is down at heel and India is in disaster. Pi and his household resolve to flee the political unrest brought on by Indira Gandhi’s “Emergency” and ship the whole zoo and its furry inhabitants to Canada.
The cargo boat the household (mom, father and sister) are travelling on is caught in a violent storm.
The solely survivors: Pi, a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and a full-grown Bengal Tiger known as Richard Parker, drift on a lifeboat within the Indian Ocean for an astonishing 227 days. Pi remembers his fantastical story to delivery firm worker Mrs. Okamoto from a hospital mattress in Mexico.
Tim Hatley’s set is a wealthy, visible feast. From the zoo within the Botanical Gardens to the teeming road market, the grim dock and the big cargo ship to the lifeboat rolling on the stormy ocean (superbly realised due to Andrzej Goulding’s video design). It is multi-levelled, ingeniously and seamlessly reworking from one place to the following. It is sort of merely beautiful.
Created by puppet designers Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell, the four-legged characters play an integral position. Most spectacular amongst them, and rightly so, is the realisation of the Bengal Tiger. It strikes with menace, grace and ferocious energy by the hands of the expert puppeteers.
As the story unfolds, the initially affable Pi, the religiously curious, multi-faith experimenter, ponders religion and perception and in the end fact, and asks what is healthier, the reality or story? Especially when the great story covers unimaginable horrors.
Central to the success of the piece is the portrayal of Pi, and Divesh Subaskaran in his skilled debut, is excellent. Puckish and curious, courageous and misplaced, he tackles the roller-coaster of feelings with a deftness belying his years. He is an actor of unbelievable potential. The ensemble too are glorious, the stage teems with life as they deal with a number of roles, every completely characterised.
The innovation and imaginative and prescient within the staging and the distinctive solid add to the theatrical expertise however it’s the truth that that is good old school storytelling superbly informed that makes this completely unmissable. I might urge you to get a ticket when you can.
