LIFE OF PI
Birmingham Hippodrome, Tuesday 13th February 2024
Not having read Yann Martel’s novel nor having seen the subsequent film adaptation, I approach the stage version (by Lolita Chakrabarti) with an open mind and a pair of fresh eyes.
We meet Pi (short for Piscine, as in the French for swimming pool) in a Canadian hospital, being interviewed by an official. Pi is the sole survivor of a shipwreck and the Company want to know what happened. He launches into his story, going back to his family life in India where his parents ran a zoo. Cue a range of puppet animals: butterflies on sticks, a goat, a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and, most impressively, a Bengal tiger. It is a time of unrest. There is even violence against the animal inmates, and so Pi’s dad (Ralph Birtwell) decides to uproot the family and the zoo in the hope of a better life in a new country. So they all board an ill-fated ship… Because we know from the start that Pi is the only one to come out of it alive, there is a sense of doom hanging over the family, no matter how charming and funny they may be. It’s just a matter of waiting for disaster to befall them and – crucially in this inventive production – how it will be staged. Pi ends up in a lifeboat with some of the animals – who kill and eat each other – and he has to find a way of surviving with a tiger on board.
Director Max Webster uses every trick in the book of theatrical tricks to tell Pi’s story, from the War Horse-like puppets (the zebra especially) to the video backgrounds, the beautiful lighting… It’s a hugely impressive show, brimming with effective ideas.
As Pi, Divesh Subaskaran is an appealing young narrator, with an inquiring mind and a sense of humour. Pi seeks to understand the world by joining as many religions as he can, seeing no contradiction. He claims his story will ‘make you believe in God’. By the end, I have had no Damascene revelation. The play’s simplistic claims about faith leave me cold – like those who wake from a complex operation and thank God but not the team of surgeons!
Also strong in supporting roles are Goldy Notay as Amma, Lilian Tsang as the unimaginative investigator Mrs Okamoto, and Sharita Oomeer as the more sympathetic and credulous Miss Chen.
Really, the stars of the show are the ensemble, who take on smaller roles and operate the magnificent puppets like a tag team. It becomes easy to believe Richard Parker (the tiger) is a living breathing creature… But this is no cosy puppet show. This is nature, red in tooth and claw… Until it goes a bit loopy, and Richard Parker starts to speak. In a French accent… It is then we realise something is up.
Did the events, as related by Pi, happen? Or is he deranged from months of isolation and dehydration? He retells the tale with a cast of human characters in the lifeboat, and we realise the truth is a more brutal tale of man’s animalistic impulses when it comes to survival.
It’s a theatrical banquet, the ever-changing scenes held together by Subaskaran’s likeable presence, and there’s a sumptuous score composed by Andrew T Mackay. The splendid staging overshadows the substance of the story, which doesn’t strike me as all that original. I can’t help being reminded of a book written in 1914 by Tarzan author, Edgar Rice Burroughs. It’s called The Lad and the Lion and it too is about a boy on a boat with a big cat.
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Bum on a Seat 
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