Will you like Life of Pi, the touring Broadway show if you liked the book by Yann Martel? Yes. Will you like it if you saw the movie? Yes. Will you like it if you’re completely new to the epic story? Most likely. The story is “a lot.” It’s full of tension, equal parts uplifting and anxiety-producing. Mix in some religion, politics, family drama and a lot of “Wait, WHAT?!” and you have a glimpse of what to expect from the show currently playing the Buell Theatre, March 18-30, 2025.
Out of respect for those who, like my husband, were completely new to the Life of Pi story, I won’t divulge too much about the plot. I’ll just say it involves a family from India who owned a zoo, who, due to political unrest in their country, decide to move themselves and the whole operation to Canada, via a cargo ship. A bad storm ensues and Pi, the son and lead character, finds himself on a raft with three of the animals from the zoo, including a vicious Bengal tiger.
The story is all being recounted by Pi for an investigator who just wants to file his report about what happened with the ship and be done with it. What he gets instead is a wild, fantastical, heart wrenching, story of survival and power that might be true… or it might not. There. Hopefully, I haven’t said too much.
Now, on to how Lolita Chakrabarti’s stage adaptation pulls it all off.
The actual sets are pretty minimal – metal frames of different configurations become the zoo cages and levels of the cargo ship. The small boat Pi is in is merely a wood frame cut in two that’s pulled apart and brought together as needed. Brilliantly, the top layer of the boat comes moves up and down to suggest the boat’s rising and falling with the stormy waves.
The majority of the scenery is made by projections, primarily on the ground – a labyrinthine pattern on a stark hospital room floor; undulating waves crashing onto a ship’s dock; swirling schools of fish; and stars reflecting on calm waters.
The heart and soul of Life of Pi, though, are the human actors and the puppets which are run by humans. There are eight cast members who give the animal puppets movement and life, despite the fact that they are very visible within and around the puppets. That includes a life-sized Bengal tiger! According to the show’s program, “the tiger alone had to jump, climb, attack prey and even swim.” It is looming, stealthy and scary.
Similar to The Lion King on Broadway, where masks and physical framework suggested each animal, the audience has to get over its initial reaction to seeing these animal-humans and begin to let the humans melt away, leaving only the animal. In the animal-devouring-animal scenes, it was easy to ignore the human puppeteers and get lost in the primal-ness of it all.
Several of the actors with speaking roles portrayed multiple characters. An exception is Taha Mandviwala who played Pi. According to his bio, he’s an actor, athlete and health coach. That explains so much. Pi is on stage in every scene. And through 95% of it, he’s running, crawling, leaping, fighting and in an almost constant state of exuberance, anxiety and fear. It’s a very big performance. The physicality and emotional toll of this role has to be massive. Yet I saw Mandviwala at the cast party on opening night and he looked completely fine, less than 30 minutes from exiting the stage! I was so surprised because I would have expected him to have to lay on the floor, with his eyes closed and do some very zen breathing for a couple of hours before he could even function again. But, no, he’s a pro!
Politics, organized religion, faith in a higher power (even a political one), and in one’s own power, are big themes in Life of Pi. Many of the things said echo the state of things in the U.S. now, which is frightening in itself. Fear is the overriding theme to the story though, from fear for loved ones, the future, survival and for being believed. And it’s about the things fear drives one to do – things they never thought possible.
My only negative about the show is that I felt about 30 minutes could have been cut from it from various places. It simply wasn’t all necessary to establish characters, relationships or to move the story along.
Here’s my big tip about seeing Life of Pi – get the cheaper seats. I’ve had the good fortune to sit pretty close to the stage for multiple shows over the years and it’s great to be able to see the actor’s faces clearly. But I’ve often thought it might be better to sit farther back so that you can take in a bigger swath of the visuals. For Life of Pi, it was suggested we sit in the balcony, and we were really glad we did because those projections on the stage are seen much better from above and at a distance. And they are as essential to the show as the actors and puppets.
Life of Pi isn’t a happy little puppet show. It’s raw, hard to watch, and will leave you thinking “Wow. Just wow.”
To purchase tickets, visit the DenverCenter.org website. See information about $35 lottery tickets below.
-By Courtney Drake-McDonough, Publisher and Managing Editor of InGoodTasteDenver.com
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