Life of Pi, the Booker prize-winning novel by Yann Martel, has captured the hearts and imaginations of many millions of readers since it was first published in 2001. I remember reading it as a student and being totally blown away by the magnificent narrative and the big philosophical questions it raised. It has subsequently been given the cinematic treatment by Ang Lee, exposing it to an even wider global audience and winning a multitude of awards not least of all an Oscar. In 2019, this celebrated stage version was brought to life by playwright Lolita Chakrabarti and this week it arrives here at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham.
The plot centres around the fantastical story of Piscine ‘Pi’ Patel (played this evening as a girl by Pi Alternate Adwitha Arumugam), the daughter of a Pondicherry zookeeper, who is the only known human survivor of a shipwreck that claimed the lives of her entire family and all others onboard. Part of the freight that went down with the ship was the menagerie of animals that Pi’s father looked after. When disaster strikes, Pi finds herself forced to share a lifeboat with some of the animal cargo, including most famously a Bengal tiger by the name of Richard Parker. A battle for survival adrift at sea ensues.
When we first meet Pi, she is in a hospital bed, recounting the nightmarish horrors of her experience. We are in Mexico and it is 1978. The hospital is a grey and clinically drab environment – the single hospital bed is a stark reminder that she is alone and that seemingly all is lost. Pi is just 17 and has been castaway at sea for 227 days. Arumugam is brilliant in the role. She portrays Pi with the perfect blend of childish shyness and precocious pluck. She conveys a real sense of the traumatic horror and panic that Pi has experienced as well as bringing a tremendous, joyfully animated energy in her movements. Arumugam has a sincerity which is completely charming. The storytelling is exquisite, and this is entirely driven by her performance – she is on stage for the whole evening and totally owns it.
Pi is being visited in hospital by Mrs Okamoto (Lilian Tsang), a representative from the Ministry of Transport and Lulu Chen (Sharita Oomeer) from the local Embassy. These visitors have been sent to interview Pi to learn the sad fate of the vessel and the multitude of souls on board. Tsang and Oomeer are an excellent foil for Arumugam and complement her energy perfectly each in their own way. It is to them she tells her harrowing story – and we are of course honoured to hear it too. As soon as she begins, the drabness of the set completely transforms – it quite literally comes to life – and we are transported back in time with Pi to the events she describes. Kudos here to Max Webster who directs the piece to perfection. The story that unfolds is told with artistic beauty and the puppetry (for which the piece is rightly famous) is simply stunning. Set design by Tim Hatley is so central to the success of the storytelling here and is quite honestly the best I’ve ever witnessed on any stage. Coupled with the beautiful lighting effects by Tim Lutkin and infographic style video design by Andrzej Goulding the visual impact on the audience is immense – a total feast for the senses.
Along the way we meet the other human players wrapped up and lost in this story, notably Pi’s father (Ralph Birtwell) who moves between charming and didactically angry with such ease. Her mother (Goldy Notay) is portrayed with maternal sincerity and her irritatingly smart big sister Rani (Sonya Venugopal) is perfect as a somewhat serious foil for the whimsy of Pi. They bring a grounded-ness, a sense of sad reality back to the fore, but they are only ever passing through. It is the puppet animals and special effects who are the real stars of the show. Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell (the designer who also brought ‘War Horse’ to life) have created beasts that feel completely and utterly real. You very quickly cease to notice the skilful puppeteers operating them on stage, instead becoming totally captivated by the animals themselves. Their movements are well studied – realistic, naturalistic if you will. None more so than the beautiful, and at the same time terrifying tiger itself (operated at any one time by no fewer than three talented individuals). I won’t go into more detail about the relationship between Pi and the Tiger because it really does have to be seen to be believed.
This is a story about survival against the odds, a tale told with verve and imagination. It is also a piece which invites us to think about the way we interpret the events of our lives and the choices we make. It asks questions about the way we reimagine and remember our past and the stories we tell ourselves and others by way of making sense of it all. In the final analysis, Pi does offer up a less spectacular alternative version of the events of her days adrift, but I prefer to believe the first version of the story.
Hear the remarkable tale for yourself at the Theatre Royal Nottingham until Saturday 20th April 2024.
