Before I begin this review I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year and explain why my site has lain fallow for such a long time. For the two weeks before Christmas I was on an all-inclusive theatre trip. The food was not up to much and the accommodation a bit basic, but I made the best of things and joined in the immersive performance. Unfortunately the theatre in question was not of the luvvie type but the operating theatre at Harrogate Hospital where I was unexpectedly admitted after attending a clinic run by the consultant who performed the fitting of my replacement knee last year. It turns out I had picked up a pretty bad infection so was wired up to various machines and drips with copious amounts of antibiotics and pain-killers. Anyway, I am back now, well, your luck had to run out sooner or later.
Appropriately enough Life of Pi begins in a hospital ward in Mexico in 1978 where Pi, who has changed his name from Piscine to stop his school mates from calling him Pissing, and and to pay tribute to the transcendental number being the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, is being treated having survived 227 days adrift in a lifeboat, after the cargo ship in which he was travelling with his family and his father’s animals from India to Canada, sank. The menagerie, owned by Patel senior, has had to close down due to civil unrest in the country so he decided to relocate in North America. When the ship goes down the lifeboat is occupied by Pi, an orangutan OJ, a hyena, a zebra, Black and White and a Bengal Tiger, which had recently been added to the zoo to boost visitor numbers. It is called Richard Parker after a mistake in the paperwork where his human captor’s name has been entered in the space for the animal’s name.
The cast, some, or all of whom may be different to those who appeared in the Leeds production
The cargo ship on which they were travelling was registered under the Japanese flag and an official from that country’s government has flown to Mexico to get an account of what happened. It is not long before the only two occupants left on the lifeboat are the tiger and Pi, who has taken to drifting alongside the rescue vessel on a bundle of flotsam he has crafted into a makeshift raft so as not to become a meal for Richard Parker. He is visited by a succession of apparitions who give him advice on how to survive, his plan being to consume the meagre amount of food and water, which he has sifted away in a box, slowly and hope that the animal starves to death, thus allowing him to get back on board.
Whilst it is obvious that Pi survives, there are many twists and turns which I will not delve into as it would spoil your enjoyment of the play should you wish to go and see it. These are so weird that I wondered if they were the fabrication of a mind affected by lack of food, drink and sleep, a view shared by the official who discounts the whole narrative as fantasy. It is at this point that Pi comes up with an alternative story, substituting the animals for people he encountered on the ship, thus making it more acceptable to the envoy’s life experiences.
The whole play is based on discussions about religion and philosophy, Pi manages to follow Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. He also has a flirtation with Judaism prompting his brother to suggest that if he can fit in another three he can live his life on perpetual holiday! His story also asks questions, such as should a committed vegetarian kill an animal to stop them, the veggie, not the animal, from starving to death. Don’t worry, it is handled in a humorous and accessible way.
The animals were depicted by the use of puppets, and, whilst they were inventively operated, I found the size of them, or lack thereof, meant that the humans, who were in full view, except for the ones playing the back end of the creatures, dwarfed some of them ruining the illusion, or obliterating them altogether.
The acting was generally good, with a couple of exceptions, but Divesh Subaskaran was superb as Pi. His verbal delivery and body language were full of expression and humour, even in the darkest of times.
Normally the press nights at Leeds Grand Theatre are on Tuesday but, as this didn’t open until Wednesday, 10th January, there was a matinee at 2.00pm and we were given the option of attending this performance, one which I accepted gladly as I still need to hit the meds at 9.00pm. I was amazed to find the theatre packed, with several school parties. I must say that they seemed to behave in a much more considerate manner than a lot of the adults at recent productions. The age category was PG but there seemed to be a couple of fairly young children who got a bit bored towards the end and whose voices were of high enough pitch to carry a long way. I am not complaining about this but there were some scenes which were pretty graphically lurid, especially when the animals killed each other. Red ribbons emanated from their stomachs to represent their innards so it might not have been a bad thing that the illusion they were real was not better.
I found Life of Pi a refreshing change from the recent spate of musicals as it was able to be appreciated on several levels. The staging was inventive with the hospital bed being quickly transformed into the lifeboat and the cast holding up blank pieces of paper onto which was projected various legends, bearing the number of days Pi had been without water or the location of the action. I would certainly recommend it should you be looking for something a little different. Having said that, tickets are in short supply so I wouldn’t hang about.
Life of Pi is a Sheffield Theatres Production based on the novel by Yarn Martel, adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti and is at Leeds Grand Theatre until Saturday 13th January. For more information and to book, please go to https://leedsheritagetheatres.com/whats-on/life-of-pi/
For other attractions coming to Leeds Heritage Theatres please see https://leedsheritagetheatres.com/whats-on/
Tyke It To The Limit 