Review: LIFE OF PI, New Victoria Theatre Woking - Tour
Life of Pi started as a bestselling award winning 2001 novel by Yang Martel and became a four-time Oscar winning Ang Lee movie in 2012, before being adapted for the stage by Lolita Chakrabarti in 2019 to win five Olivier Awards after its transfer into the West End in 2021. It now begins a thirty-two-week UK regional tour until June 2024 and remains a technically accomplished piece of theatre with beautifully evocative lighting and projections, astonishing life-like puppetry and a very impressive professional stage debut from RADA graduate Divesh Subaskaran as the central narrator Pi Patel.
Seventeen-year-old Pi has survived 227 days at sea after the cargo ship he was sailing from India to Canada with his close relatives and animals from the family zoo with, is sunk in a violent storm and is being interrogated as he recovers to determine what actually happened in that time. Pi tells two versions of his survival and challenges his interrogators to decide which version they prefer. In the course of his storytelling, he explores the nature of reality, Indian culture, and the role of religious faith in life. It gives the adventure an interesting philosophical sub text although this never dominates the fundamental story of human survival and the spectacle of the staging.
The settings by Tim Hatley create three main contrasting environments, the beige hospital room in which the interrogation takes place, the dramatic seas in which his lifeboat sails and the wonderful colourful life in India before the voyage. The scenes in the family zoo and the market are marvellous, evocative pictures enhanced by exquisite lighting by Tim Lutkin and Tim Deiling, and clever little details in the projections by Andrej Goulding. Together, they create an intoxicating image of their life and culture. The transitions between scenes are beautifully executed giving a clear sense of time and location. The touring version has had to compromise the transition into the scenes at sea without traps and lifts to create a slightly more clunky creation of the lifeboat which, at times, do not run entirely smoothly but these are necessary adjustments to bring this wonderful production to regional stages.
The puppetry is magnificent and lives long in the memory, and the puppeteers who contort themselves to bring life into them are the real stars of the show. A wide range of techniques is used from the butterflies and birds on sticks, the Giraffe head from the wings, the small handheld meerkats or the marvellous turtle and fish on handles. But the main creatures created by Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell, and their movement directed by Caldwell, are as good a life-like creature as you will see. The unfortunate playful goat, the wonderful Zebra which breaks its leg, the impressive orangutang and vengeful Hyena are superb, but it is the Bengal Tiger that dominates the action. It moves with a cat like smoothness as it prowls the cage and boat and present a fearsome threat to young Pi even before it starts to adopt more human attributes. It looks like backbreaking work for puppeteers but they breathe real life and emotion into the creatures.
Divesh Subaskaran as Pi is charming in the role with youthful high spirits, genuine concern over the animals, a playful attitude to religion and culture, and a contrasting timid demeanour as he first faces his integrators. He holds our attention, and we are drawn into his storytelling no matter how incredible the tale gets. It is a wonderful professional stage debut. He gets good support from Lilian Tsang as Mrs Okamoto, the determined investigator, Sharita Oomer as the more caring counsel officer Mrs Chen, and his sister Rani (Keshini Misha), as well as the rest of the ensemble of characters. It is wonderful to see such an appropriately diverse cast delivering such quality on a large regional stage and they fully deserved the rapturous applause.
It is very exciting to see a play of this excellence in regional venues which are usually dominated by musical theatre, and it deserves to be seen and succeed. It is a tale of courage and endurance in human spirit, a story told in a rich cultural setting but most of all, a theatrical experience that assaults the senses so that we easily suspend our disbelief and accept the tale even when we finally know the truth. A must-see production . A creative masterpiece. A demonstration of the puppetry art form that makes you only see the creature and not the people behind it. A joyous celebration of the human spirit and live theatre.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Nick Wayne
Life of Pi plays in Woking until 7 October before continuing its tour. To book tickets for select touring venues, please click here.