Directed by Max Webster
Starring Hiran Abeysekera

The 2001 novel by Yann Martel, beautifully adapted to screen in Ang Lee’s four time Oscar ® winner Life of Pi in 2012, and more recently, a play adapted for the stage by Lolita Chakrabarti, which made its way to West End and Broadway. If you fancy some Pi, Life of Pi that is, then this third serving brought to you by National Theatre Live may just be the best method of delivery yet to tell this imaginative story.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this story, it begins with Pi (Hiran Abeysekera) recalling a shipwreck of which he is the sole survivor and only witness for an insurance agent seeking to file a claim before the deadline. In the agent’s rush to get the facts straight, Pi struggles to comprehend the traumatic experience of being trapped on a raft, stranded in the middle of the ocean with a Bangladeshi Tiger named Richard Parker as his sole companion. The contrast between the sanitised tone of an insurance agent with an unblemished record and the fanciful wishing of a teenager struggling to find the light after losing his family is incredibly powerful.

This familiar story’s depiction on a London stage is mesmerising. Firstly, Hiran Abeysekera truly encapsulates both the wonder and misery that Pi felt stranded at sea. Secondly, the use of the stage by the set designers is ingenious. Scenes that break into and drift out of Pi’s retelling of his days alone are honestly so seamlessly managed. For instance, the way in which his raft vanishes into the stage leaving only the hospital bed and the boy once more. Supporting characters also just drift out of frame whenever they’re not needed, with some even helping with the puppetry. This can be a little distracting when you’re watching a familiar face work the tail of Richard Parker while Pi rests on the hull of the boat starving, but I like how homely it feels, really selling the set as a tight production with minimal room for error from those involved. 

It’s been a while since I’ve seen the Hollywood adaption of Life of Pi, so I’ll have to go back and give it a re-watch soon, because walking out of the NT Live adaption, I sincerely believe this might be the best one. The adaptive stage works to blur the scenes between imagination and gripping reality fare better than I anticipated. And if the burning impulse that I’m left with after walking out of the cinema is that I just need to re-watch another version of this story, then I think the play has more than done its job and inspired me once again.

National Theatre Live: Life of Pi is showing in selected cinemas across Australia from March 31st.

Moviedoc thanks Sharmill Films and Nixco for the invite to the screening of this film.

Reviewed by Zak Wheeler for Moviedoc

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