by Jana Monji
During Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, seeing people of Asian descent as leads is encouraging, even if the original story itself isn’t written by someone of Asian descent. How you feel about this stage adaptation of Yann Martel’s 2001 novel may depend upon how you feel about possible cultural appropriation or Orientalism in the original source material or how you felt about Ang Lee’s 2012 Oscar-winning film. For theater and puppeteer fans, this play is a landmark.
Life of Pi is about how a teenager grew up in a zoo located in an area of India that was colonized by the French and, with his family, immigrates to Canada on a Japanese freighter with their most prized zoo animals. During the treacherous trans-Pacific journey, the freighter sinks and only Pi Patel and three animals survive: a zebra, an orangutan and the Bengal tiger called Richard Parker.
Although the author spent some time in India, Martel is of French Canadian descent. He has mentioned that he did get some inspiration from Moacyr Scliar’s 1981 novel Max and the Cats, a story about a Jewish German refugee crossing the Atlantic with a jaguar in his boat. Scliar’s book is about Nazism, but Martel’s books is about faith and survival.
Jiang Yuqin wrote (Orientalism and Re-Orientalism in Yann Martel’s ‘Life of Pi’) that in Life of Pi:
Martel’s Orientalism presents the typical postcolonial writing model, which constructs a postcolonial exotic. Pi’s Re-Orientalism reflects a diasporic Eastern boy’s desire and identity in the West. The survival story for Pi and the Bengal tiger is a metaphor for Pi to grow up to be a true western man.
The script for the stage adaptation of Life of Pi was written by a British Asian, Lolita Chakrabarti, whose parents are Bengali Hindu. For the national tour of the Broadway production, Kentucky-born Indian American actor Taha Mandviwala is the principal actor for the titular character, but at the performance I saw, Sri Lankan American actor Savidu Geevaratne took on the role.
While the film started with a middle-aged Pi, settled in French Canada speaking to a writer, the stage production begins in Mexico. The teenaged Pi is in a private hospital room, recovering from over 200 days in a lifeboat. A Japanese insurance agent, Mr. Okamoto (Filipino American Alan Ariano), has only a few days to interview him while the nurse (Jessica Angleskhan) hovers, worried about how recounting his experience will affect Pi’s mental and physical health. As Pi begins to narrate his story, the audience is taken to Pondicherry, India where we 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).
The play cannot match the awe-inspiring imagery of the film and the puppetry doesn’t rise to the level of The Lion King or War Horse. I neither love nor fear any of the puppets. I don’t feel an emotional attachment. Still this is puppetry at a high level. In London, the puppeteer team for Richard Parker won an Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor. That’s a first.
Geevaratne as a Pi was engaging enough and the production flows. It’s rare for a Broadway production to feature Asian American actors so this production provide positive representation. I did meet lead actor Mandviwala at a press event. For that presentation which includes Mandviwala and a team of puppeteers, visit my YouTube channel or my Instagram.
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 visit CenterTheatreGroup.org or SCFTA.org (Segerstrom).
For a longer review, visit my blog AgeOfTheGeek.org.
Registration is closed for Common Ground: Building Together conference and gala award banquet in San Francisco on January 24. A shoutout to our planning committee: Jane Chin, Frank Mah, Jeannie Young, Akemi Tamanaha, Nathan Soohoo, Mark Young, Dave Liu, and Yiming Fu.
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