Despite some problems, “Life of Pi” is a great choice for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage month and in Southern California, you have a choice of watching the film or seeing the national touring Broadway production, currently playing in downtown LA at the Ahmanson before transferring to Orange County’s Segerstrom in Costa Mesa.

Based on Yann Martel’s 2001 novel of the same name, the play was adapted for the stage by British Asian Lolita Chakrabarti. Born in Spain, Martel had traveled to India, but is the son of French Canadians. Chakrabarti is the child of Bengali Hindu parents.

The Broadway production received five Tony nominations, winning three (Scenic Design of a Play, Best Lighting Design and Best Sound Design). Abeysekera reprised his role, but the national tour features different actors. Although puppets are involved, considering the alternative story provided at the end, this is not a play for young children.

The film ‘Life of Pi’ came out in 2012 and was nominated for 11 Oscars, winning four, including Best Director (Ang Lee). The film was rated PG because despite not having strong language, sexual content or gore, there’s adult content about murder.

The story is, as the title suggests, about the life of Pi, or Piscine Molitor Patel. In the film, we meet him as a middle-aged man living in French Canada. His swimming mentor has suggested that a writer meet with Pi. Pi tells him the story of his early life and his fantastical journey to Canada.

Born and raised at the zoo  in Pondicherry, the French region of India, Pi was named for a famous Art Deco French swimming pool originally built in 1929 in Paris. In 2014, the pool reopened as part of a redevelopment complex that included a 4-star hotel and a medical center. The name, however, sounds too much like “pissing” and kids are cruel until Piscine comes up with a solution, linking his name to mathematical constant. Pi has an older brother and sister but it is his connection with a tiger, Richard Parker that ultimately defines him. Richard Parker was a hunter who caught a Bengal tiger cub and through an error, his name becomes attached to it. When Pi is dangerously careless around Richard Parker, his father teaches him a lesson, sacrificing a goat. Animals are not like us and while Pi believes he sees a soul reflected back in Richard Parker’s eyes, what he’s really seeing is himself.

When domestic tumultuous times hits (“The Emergency“) just as Pi has found a girlfriend, the father decides to take the zoo to Canada, transporting the remaining animals and his family on a Japanese freighter ship, Tsimtsum. The family has to make due with the slop served by the ship’s surly cook, forced to eat meat despite being vegetarian. A Buddhist sailor attempts to help them saying that the gravy served with the rice, is just for taste. During a storm over the Mariana Trench, the boat sinks and Pi finds himself on one of the lifeboats with a plains zebra and a hyena. After the storm has died down, a Bornean orangutan floats on a raft of bananas and joins them. Yet in the end, only Richard Parker and Pi will survive, landing in Mexico after over 200 days at sea.

In the play, the action starts in Tomatlán, Mexico  with Pi (Kentucky-born Indian American Taha Mandviwala stars, but I saw the understudy Sri Lankan American actor Savidu  Geevaratne) hospitalized and a Japanese insurance agent, Mr. Okamoto (Filipino American Alan Ariano) interviewing him to figure out how the ship sunk. The nurse (Jessica Angleskhan) hovers, cautioning the agent about Pi’s mental and physical state. Pi displays an unusual need to hoard food in a metal box.  As Pi begins to narrate his story from his spacious private room, the audience is taken to Pondicherry, India and then to the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  We do meet his father (Bombay-born Sorab Wadia), Pi’s mentor Mamaji (Indian American Rishi Jaiswal) and his sister Rani (Massachusetts-born Indian American Sharayu Mahale) as well as the Orangutan mother, Orange Juice (Angleskhan) and, of course, Richard Parker (Anna Leigh Brother, Jon Hoche and Betsy Rosen at the performance I attended).

In the film, Pi had an older brother Ravi (played by three different actors according to age), a love interest (Shravanthi Sainath) and a wife (Mythili Prakash ). These people are not present in the play.

For people of Asian descent, perhaps the first questionable thing about “Life of Pi” is that it isn’t written by a person of Asian descent. In the essay “Orientalism and Re-Orientalism in Yann Martel’s ‘Life of Pi'” by Jiang Yuqin, Jiang writes:

The film adaptation was scripted by David Magee but the play’s script was written by someone with Asian heritage, Chakrabart. The film also had cast people from India and the play affords lead roles for people of Asian descent.

The reveal of the second story seems more heavy-handed than the one from the film. The play doesn’t capture the magical imagery of the film and the puppetry doesn’t rise to the level of “The Lion King” or “War Horse.” You don’t really feel the weight of the animals. I also wish the fish puppets weren’t so generically rendered.  However, this is still high level puppetry and worth seeing. There’s a cringy moment in the dialogue when the Japanese Mr. Okamoto gives a very American pronunciation of the word “bonsai” which makes it sound more like “banzai.” My husband noticed it and I tried to ignore it, but both Spanish and Japanese differentiate the “o” and “a” sounds, but that does effect my last name in a way that’s permissible in French, but not so much in Japanese (“Monji” 門司 versus “manji” 卍 or 万時　or 万治、with the first being the most likely). Yet the name of the ship is hardly Japanese either.

The play was commissioned by producer Simon Friend and made its world premiere in England in 2019 before hitting London’s West End for a 2021-2023 run after a pandemic postponement. Nominated for nine Laurence Olivier Awards in 2022, the production came away with five awards, including Best New Play and Best Actor for Sri Lankan actor Kiran Abeysekera and Best Actor in a Supporting Role for the team of puppeteers performing Richard Parker.

Originally directed by Max Webster, the tour is directed by Ashley Brooke Monroe. Puppet design is by Olivier Award winners Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell and Caldwell is credited with puppetry movement, supported by Global Associate Puppetry and Movement Direction of Scarlet Winderink and US Associate Puppetry and Movement Direction by Jon Hoche and US Assistant Peppery and Movement Direction by Betsy Rosen. I got to see Richard Parker very up close and personal and brought my own version of Richard Parker to the Sunday show I saw.

Richard Parker, the tiger, is animated by three people: head, heart and hind(quarters). The puppeteer teams rotate and can take more than one role although some puppeteers may be too large for some roles (e.g. heart). The three actors have microphones on them so they must work together as well as voice the tiger as one. It’s not surprising then that all of these puppeteers have dance backgrounds. There seems to be a certain sense of lead and follow. The team of puppeteers for the London West End production were given an Olivier Award, the first for puppeteers. This alone makes the production worth seeing. Unlike “The Lion King” and “War Horse,” in “Life of Pi,”  a puppet animated by three-people, Richard Parker, has a main role.

 

“Life of Pi” continues at the Ahmanson (135 N. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles) until 1 June 2025 (Sunday). Then it moves on to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts at Segerstrom Hall, 3 June (Tuesday) to 15 June 2025 (Sunday). For more information or tickets visitCenterTheatreGroup.org or SCFTA.org (Segerstrom).