Great theater can take you away for a couple of hours, immersing you in a story as your connection to the narrative deepens. Life of Pi, playing at the Providence Performing Arts Center through Sunday, February 16, does just that. It’s a powerful, captivating, and unforgettable tale, filled with fascinating characters, both human and animal.
The play opened its Providence run Tuesday to a well-deserved standing ovation. The Tony and (London) Olivier Award-winning show is thoroughly entertaining, filled with gallows humor, raw drama, and deep despair. It’s part survival story, part philosophical exploration, where faith is repeatedly questioned and debated.
Life of Pi is a stage adaptation of Yann Martel’s best-selling novel of the same name, which tells the story of sixteen-year-old Pi, who is stranded on a lifeboat with four animal companions – a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.
The story begins at a zoo run by Pi’s father in the city of Pondicherry, India. Pi has a happy life, kidding around with his big sister, learning some hard lessons of youth, and exploring three major religions in a spiritual quest, a theme maintained throughout the play. However, the family is soon forced to flee to Canada due to political turmoil in India in the 1970s. So they board a freighter ship along with the animals from the zoo. (No doubt, this story could have taken a comic turn, instead of a tragic one.)
Pi shares his story from a hospital room where he relives 200+ trauma-filled days lost at sea after a shipwreck. His misfortune is amplified by the dangerous animals who share his fate. He tells a fantastic story, one that his inquisitors have a hard time believing. It’s really an allegorical tale of two stories – and another version of the truth comes out at the end, where Pi reminds us that we believe the narratives we want to believe.
The character of Piscine Molitor Patel, who recasts himself as “Pi,” is played magnificently by Taha Mandviwala, who is completely engaged throughout the show. He is central to every scene, initially alongside family members, and later sharing the stage with Richard Parker, the mistakingly named Bengal tiger who shares his fate. The rest of the cast is strong, especially Pi’s father, played by Sorab Wadia, his mother, played by Jessica Angleskhan, and his sister Rani, played by Sharayu Mahale.
The show is visually stunning, with well-choreographed life-size animal puppets roaming the stage. The animals move gracefully, and sometimes abruptly when attacking their prey, with some puppets requiring up to three puppeteer/actors to operate. You can see why the puppeteers won “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” at London’s Olivier Awards. Notably, the London production also won awards for “Best New Play,” “Best Actor,” “Best Lighting Design,” and “Best Set Design” in 2022.
The show features intense lighting effects, which might be uncomfortable for sensitive theater-goers and young children. It won three Tony Awards in 2023, including one in lighting, making it the first Broadway play with a majority South Asian cast/creative team to win that many awards.
PPAC continues to bring world-class theater to the state, and Life of Pi is another reason to get out and enjoy an evening during the dead of winter. Easy to give this one 5 Stars – highly recommended! The show runs through Sunday, February 16, at PPAC. Click here for tickets.
