Royal & Derngate Theatre, Northampton – until Saturday 6th April 2024
Review by Amanda Allen
5*****
If I’m honest I didn’t enjoy the book so I was not sure I was going to like the stage adaptation, how wrong could I be. From the first scene I was captivated by the telling of 17 year old Piscine Patel’s life story. Starting out in India in 1978, the Patel family run a Zoo. His magical childhood was so well demonstrated with the beautiful puppet butterflies fluttering about the stage. The introduction of the larger animals and the stage setting for the zoo was absolutely magical. The stage and costume design by Tim Hatley was truly inspired, simple but effective, evoking the feel of a warm climate far away and the never ending sea scape of being lost at sea. The puppet animals were handled so well that you just didn’t notice the puppeteers who brought them to life and gave them such brilliant animation you could tell exactly what they were thinking. The background sound effects designed by Carolyn Downing completed our transportation to a different world.
The adaptation of Yann Martel’s best selling book by Lolita Chakrabarti, didn’t shy away from the more unpleasant aspects of the story with Richard Parker, the Tiger, eating the Goat, Mr Buckingham (surely the best name for a goat) quite early in the first scene, an indication of what was to come later in the story. The grizzlier aspects of the lifeboat journey were brilliantly demonstrated with excellent use of puppets and props leaving the audience in no doubt what was happening to the Zebra and Hyena on board the lifeboat. All this was supported splendidly by some of the most effective lighting and video imaginary I have seen on stage, congratulations to Tim Lutkin and Tim Deiling lighting designers and Andrzej Goulding Video designer.
Pi Patel, played by Divesh Subaskaran was absolutely outstanding, surely an actor to watch out for in the future. He was on the stage for the entire performance, he captivated the audience with every word and move. I have never seen such a young actor embody the persona of their character with so much quiet stage presence. He showed us the life of Pi so completely and fully the audience were totally invested in his story. I can only imaging how exhausted he must be after each performance. Apart from being on stage and remembering all your words for almost 2 hours there was the added challenge of a very physical performance, climbing up ship’s infrastructure, balancing on the edge of a lifeboat, clinging to the end of a bed, running about on stage, I was worn out just from watching him. The energy and aerobic ability of Pi and the puppeteers was amazing.
The supporting cast were equally accomplished, I particularly enjoyed the simmering animosity between the Canadian consulate representative Lulu Chen played by Sharita Oomeer and Mrs Okomoto the ships insurance investigator played by Lilian Tsang. With them almost coming to blows over how Pi was being interrogated in the hospital after his time lost at sea. As Pi himself said “there are many improbable stories but as with the lottery someone always wins”.
Asking the hard questions about religion and life the story explored our relationship with organised religions. With Pi attending a Church, a Mosque and a Temple because they were all in the same street and making the observation that they were all versions of the same thing. With science running through the explanation of so many things in the story we are left asking as many questions as the tale answers and still left questioning our own beliefs at the end of it. Which version of the lifeboat story do we want to believe? As Pi himself says “Choosing doubt is like choosing immobility as a mode of transport”.
If you can, I urge you to go and see this. It may not change your life but it will make you question many aspects of it.