Theatre 2023: Life of Pi - National Theatre @ Cineplex

Lately, with each new play filmed by London’s National Theatre that we watch at Cineplex, I marvel at how good the production is and think that it will be difficult to top, only to be proven wrong by the next show.  After watching “Life of Pi”, the stage adaptation of Canadian author Yann Martel’s 2001 philosophical, religious allegorical novel, I can confidently say that this one will be tough to beat.

In the book, Piscine Molitor Patel, named after the French word for swimming pool and nicknamed Pi (as in 3.14159…), lived in Pondicherry, India with his brother Ravi and his parents who ran a zoo with an array of wild animals. The first part of the book details Pi’s happy childhood in India and at the zoo.  We learn of Pi’s quest for spirituality when he practices not one, but three religions, as a Catholic, a Muslim and a Hindu. When challenged with the need to pick one, Pi disagrees, indicating that each religion believes in a God.. they just tell a different version of the same story.  Pi’s reluctance to pick one religion ties directly into one of the main themes of the novel.

Due to political issues in India, Pi’s father closes the zoo, sells off the animals to various zoos in America and makes plans to emigrate his family to Canada aboard the Japanese cargo ship Tsimtsum.  “The ship sank.”  With those three stark little words, we are thrown into the second part of book when the ship bringing his family to Canada is lost and Pi is the only human survivor sitting in a lifeboat.  He is joined by a zebra who broke its leg jumping overboard, a vicious hyena, a maternal orangutan named Orange Juice, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Over the course of some weeks, the hyena kills and eats the defenseless zebra and then beheads the weaker orangutan in gory fashion, before being killed by the tiger.  This leaves Pi alone, trying to survive not only the elements and scarcity of food or drinkable water, but also being trapped in a small space with a wild tiger for the remaining of his 227-day ordeal.  In the end, Pi is able to partially tame and learn to co-exist with Richard Parker, whose presence actually keeps Pi sane and gives him the will to survive before finally hitting land and being rescued.

The third and final part of the book deals with Pi in the hospital, telling his tale to insurance claim adjusters who are trying to determine how and why the ship sank.  When they challenge the story of Pi and the animals as fantastical and unbelievable, Pi offers an alternate and even more horrific tale.  In this version, the zebra is an injured sailor, the orangutan is Pi’s mother, and the vicious hyena who brutally kills and cannibalizes the others is the merciless, amoral cook of the Tsimtsum. That leaves Richard Parker to represent the savage will to survive in Pi himself.  The insurance adjustors are asked which of the two is the more palatable story and which one is more likely to be allowed by an all merciful God?

I read Yann Martel’s novel when it first came out to critical acclaim.  I found the story interesting and the themes of search for spirituality and surviving horrific adversity through storytelling by changing the narrative or perspective, to be admirable.   But I cannot say that I enjoyed the book that much.  I found it a bit too mystical, ethereal, and unrelatable for my taste.  I also thought the interspersed short chapters narrated by some unidentified, third person interviewing an adult Pi to glean his story, to be distracting from the main “flashback” storyline.

It was therefore with a bit of skepticism that I went to see the live production of Life of Pi.  But the notion of using puppetry to represent the animals intrigued me, especially after enjoyng the productions of War Horse and The Lion King.  As it turns out, while I was ambivalent about the book, I loved the staged version.  The staging of this show as amazing.  The manipulation of the puppets was so skillful that although you clearly see the puppeteers (sometimes multiple ones required to move one animal), you soon forget them and only see the extremely lifelike beasts.  At the 2022 Olivier Awards (Britain’s version of the Tonys), Life of Pi won 5 awards including best play and Hiran Abeysekera for best actor in his role of Pi.  But best of all, the seven puppeteers who manipulated the tiger Richard Parker won the award for best supporting actor.

Being able to see the animals in motion during the zoo scenes, aboard the Tsimtsum and on the lifeboat was thrilling and made what felt unrelatable in text absolutely magical.  In addition to the larger animal puppets, there were also birds soaring through the sky, a giant sea turtle, and fish that glow as they swarm around the boat in the water (created through the use of video). During the early scenes at the zoo, sets of gates are lifted in the air, shifted around in an almost dance-like movement and reconfigured to form different views of the cage enclosures.  In one such scene where Pi’s father is trying to teach his children how dangerous the wild animals are, a goat that the kids lovingly named Buckingham is fed to Richard Parker, who pounces upon and devours it.  Even though you know that these are puppets and that no actual animals are being harmed, the action feels so real that the powerful emotions invoked are palpable.

The stagecraft was also excellent in representing Pi’s time at sea.  Although it is may not have been noticed in the earlier scenes, the stage is shaped like the bow or front of a boat. Use of video projected on the background and floor of the stage helps to create different settings. When Pi is at sea, water appears to crash and swirl during stormy weather but shimmers during calmer times.  A physical lifeboat rises up from the stage during the scenes at sea, allowing Pi and the animals on board to jump acrobatically back and forth and even wage battles with each other.  But the cleverest piece of staging occurs at one point where Pi falls out of the boat while trying to escape Richard Parker.  The stage was created with a flexible floor with slits cut into it.  When Pi "falls into the water", he goes right through the floor, submerging “under water”, and then pops his head up again at another part of the stage, before climbing back on the boat.  This effect of this sequence was absolutely amazing.

In addition to the breathtaking visuals, I think the reason the stage play works better because it uses a more concise framing device. The play foregoes the anonymous current-day narrator who is interviewing an adult Pi.  Instead, the play starts with a newly rescued and still traumatized teenage Pi, who is compelled to tell his story (or stories) solely to the insurance adjusters, thus concentrating on the main action. With the masterful puppetry and amazing staging, this was one of the best plays that I’ve seen in a long time.