Johan Persson
Baltimore is the new Schenectady.
Let me explain.
For years, thanks to its proximity to New York City and a generous tax credit from the state of New York, the folks in Schenectady have been the first audiences treated to Broadway’s latest national tours. Just a few hours’ drive from Manhattan, casts and crews have moved from midtown rehearsal halls to the Proctors Theatre, where they rehearsed a show’s technical elements and treated local audiences to the first public preview performances. Just in recent memory, Frozen, Some Like It Hot, Company, and Waitress have launched in Schenectady, with Parade and Beauty and the Beast soon hitting the boards. For a long while, if you read a national tour press release, chances are it started with, ‘Performances will begin in Schenectady with additional cities to be announced at a later date.’
But Baltimore is right behind. After the passing of a similarly generous tax break bill, producers have used Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre to launch their tours of The Wiz, Peter Pan and & Juliet, with Water for Elephants and the new staging of The Phantom of the Opera coming soon.
Life of Pi, based on the bestselling book of the same name, is the latest production to launch in Baltimore, now playing at the Hippodrome through the end of the week before moving to the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. for its next stop.
If you read Yann Martel’s 2002 book or saw Ang Lee’s 2012 feature film, the story is unchanged. A Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, and a fellow named Richard Parker are adrift at sea, shipwrecked when the cargo vessel they’re on goes down, floating and floating and floating. Only the religious trinity are really just one 17-year-old Indian boy, Pi (played on Opening Night and at most performances by Taha Mandviwala), and Richard Parker is a Royal Bengal tiger — so-called thanks to a clerical error that confused his name with that of his captor.
Most of the novel’s 300-some pages are dedicated to their 227 days at sea, but despite one of them being a vicious wild animal, the concept of two characters sitting in a boat doesn’t scream theatricality (Swept Away, the new musical that features a doubled four characters drifting in a shipwrecked lifeboat, is prematurely closing on Broadway after only a few weeks performances — and at least when that show’s storyline gets stagnant, they get to sing Avett Brothers songs.) Therefore, Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation uses, and relies on, the book’s framing device that sees Pi relaying his story to government officials charged with recording details of the sunken ship, its passengers, and their aftermath. Unfortunately, that’s perhaps the least interesting part of the book, chapters where a few Debbie Downers say, ‘That didn’t happen — you didn’t survive on a lifeboat shacked up with a tiger! That’s impossible!’
Johan Persson
In this stage version, these characters frequently pop up to tell you that the story Pi is telling is stupid. But it’s not. In fact, it’s why you buy a ticket. When director Max Webster’s staging leans into the magical realism, the magic is so much more fun than the realism. Richard Parker and the menagerie of other animals who appear on the stage — a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena, and a giraffe, among others — are portrayed by several talented puppeteers and created by puppet designers (Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell), whose collective resumes including Sesame Street, War Horse, and the recent Broadway revival of Angels in America speak for themselves. It takes three performers to breathe life into Richard Parker (Shiloh Goodin, Anna Leigh Gortner, and Toussaint Jeanlouis at this performance), for example, while everything from rats to fish to turtles to the boat itself is brought about by the ensemble. It’s creative theatricality at its finest, and while the comparisons to The Lion King are obvious and low-hanging, it’s both similar and often better than the ever-aging Disney show.
On paper, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Not only is Pi adrift with limited emergency rations, but he’s also within striking distance of a pissed-off and pretty hungry jungle cat. Thematically, it’s all there for meditations on faith (including that trio of religions, among others), humanity, and the difficulties of staying alive while staving off the inevitability of death. And often, those musings, thanks to some direct copy-and-pasting from Martel’s novel and a dramatic and cinematic underscore provided by composer Andrew T. Mackay, work well. The puppets round out the theatricality — not only did I sit up straight when Richard Parker first appeared, but I noticed a few families leave when he devoured a tasty meal of fresh (alive) goat — and the play tinkers with drama in every sense of the word.
Believable? Who cares, it’s the theatre. We don’t need to harp on believable. Or whether or not it’s always engaging (it isn’t) or successful in helping you with your belief suspension (it is). We’re adults (well, most of us were — I don’t think I would recommend this often quite harrowing and occasionally grotesque show to any little ones) and can enjoy Pi’s tale, whether or not the bozos at the infirmary want to believe him. He does offer them an alternative story, one where four humans take the place of the animals (still sans Avett Brothers songs), but one that isn’t nearly as exciting or interesting or chock full of survival reflections or divine considerations. It might be the more likely version of events, but, as Pi asks both them and us, ‘Which is the better story?’
Life of Pi runs about 2 hours 10 minutes with one intermission. Recommended for ages 10 and up. Contains some mature content and violence, smoke, haze, flashing lights, strobe lights, and loud sounds throughout.
Life of Pi runs through December 14 at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre. Other cities on the schedule include Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Schenectady, Minneapolis, Portland OR, Seattle, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and more. Visit the official website for more information. Use our Ticketmaster link to purchase tickets.
Life of Pi – National Tour
NETworks Presentations
Check our Ticketmaster link for ticket availability.
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