Writer: Yann Martel
Adaptor: Lolita Chakrabarti
Director: Max Webster
We meet 17-year-old Pi in a Mexican hospital just as a bossy insurance agent has come to interview him about the shipwreck from which he is the only survivor.
“How was your trip?” asks the ever polite and charming Pi. Then he adds, in a huge understatement: “I’ve had a terrible trip.”
From the bare stage and simple hospital bed he begins to tell his story – the one that won novelist Yann Martel the Booker Prize, then won four Oscars when Ang Lee made it into a movie, and has now won five Olivier awards with this, Lolita Chakrabarti’s skilful stage adaptation.
The stage quickly becomes a sun-bathed zoo in Pondicherry, India, as three Tims – set designer Hatley and lighting maestros Lutkin and Deiling – create a quick succession of scenes from Pi’s happy childhood.
We roam the delightful zoo, transformed by the movement of railings, lighting and doors in the vast backdrop, meeting its caged inhabitants. The animals are brought to life by an army of puppeteers and it’s amazing how your brain – along with careful costume design – enables you to focus on the creatures rather than their animators, whether they are inside the puppets or controlling heads, limbs or tails.
Political unrest prompts the family to set sail for Canada on a badly run cargo ship, complete with their orangutans, zebra, hungry hyena and huge Bengal tiger. But stormy seas see them escape their crates until Pi is alone on a life raft with, he says, only dangerous animals for company.
Divesh Subaskaran, in an awesome professional debut, is immensely likeable as Pi and his convincing portrayal of an inquisitive, humorous and imaginative young man just rolls along.
Pi’s time at sea is recreated with fantastic video projections and lighting as his boat spins in the waves and puppeteered sea creatures and debris pass by.
The artistry of the puppet crew, under Finn Caldwell’s direction, shines in detailed movements such as the heaving chest of a dying zebra and careful placing of the tiger’s enormous paws. Caldwell designed the puppets to resemble driftwood, in keeping with the story, but their carefully controlled actions make the threat to Pi feel real.
There are gruesome moments, befitting a tale of survival, and dramatic twists and turns – did he really inhabit a boat with a full-grown tiger called Richard Parker? What is certain, however, is that Pi will have your heart.
Runs until 27 January 2024
