Review: LIFE OF PI at The Kennedy Center

A boy is shipwrecked for 227 days on a lifeboat with a terrifying companion—an adult Bengal tiger. The full tale, the boy says, “will make you believe in God.” With breathtaking visuals and puppetry, this extraordinary story leaps to the stage in the U.S. national tour of Life of Pi. Adapted by playwright Lolita Chakrabarti from Yann Martel’s literary masterpiece, this production stays true to the novel while putting spectacle in the spotlight. 

Life of Pi is a story about storytelling. Through an odyssey across the Pacific, it shows how narratives can help us survive life-shattering tragedy. The play begins as 17-year-old Pi, played with terrific energy by Savidu Geevaratne (Taha Mandviwala at other performances), recovers from his journey in a stark Mexican hospital. As he’s first questioned about the shipwreck, he hides under the bed and hoards food. Soon, he emerges to narrate the story of his life.

As Pi opens up to the investigators about his childhood, the greyscale walls of the hospital transform into the lush grounds of his family’s zoo in Pondicherry, India. Stunning, lifesize animal puppets—each manipulated by several masterful puppeteers—gallop, swing, and prowl onto the stage. An ensemble cast provides the visual fabric of Pi’s story as they shift set pieces, supply clever canvases for projections, and physically carry Pi in and out of his narration. In these transitions, director Max Webster strikes an artful balance between using high- and low-tech stagecraft. His approach focuses on the characters' experiences rather than upstaging them with flashy effects.

The play’s early scenes pack in a lot of thematic background. Pi gives us a glimpse into his sometimes strained but loving family life through conversations with his Father (Sorab Wadia), Amma (Jessica Angleskhan), and older sister, Rani (Sharayu Mahale). We also learn about Pi’s experimentation with religion, which leads him to the unusual practice of observing Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam simultaneously. In these sequences set in India, Tim Hatley’s set and costume design sparkle. Humans and animals alike explore a rich world—one that will soon be yanked from under their feet.

When political strife in India causes Pi and his family to emigrate to Canada, they board a cargo ship alongside enormous wooden crates containing the residents of their zoo. Over the Pacific, a storm arrives. Suddenly, Pi is left without his family in a tiny lifeboat. The pieces of this small craft float together on stage and take shape around Pi’s hospital bed, blending his retelling with unfolding action. Just as Pi has company in the present, he is not alone on board. His new shipmates are all creatures we already know from the zoo: a terrified orangutan, a wounded zebra, a hungry hyena, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

Springing onto the lifeboat with chilling ferocity, Richard Parker offers a stunning showcase of the puppet design by Finn Caldwell and Nick Barnes. Parker is operated by three puppeteers at a time, with two executing his motions from the inside out. In every subtle tail twitch and gently groomed ear, he has at least three humans’ worth of expressiveness. This magnificent puppet offers a different version of Richard Parker than the one captured in Ang Lee’s excellent film adaptation of Life of Pi: this feline feels more distant from our hero, scarier, and funnier. For this story within a story, the uncanny mysteriousness works.

Despite its boyish hero, larger-than-life plot, and animal puppets, Life of Pi is not for young children. After Pi finishes his tale with the orangutan, zebra, hyena, and tiger, he offers the investigators another version of events—this time, without the animals. We’ve already seen Pi lose his entire family, plead to Jesus, Muhammad, and Vishnu, and drink the blood of a frantic sea turtle. This retelling is far more harrowing.

Once both versions are finished, Pi stops the investigation to ask: “Which is the better story?” As audience members, we get to choose the rendition we prefer. But is this a real choice? After watching the gorgeous, terrifying, wonderful Richard Parker slink away for the last time, it would be impossible not to want him to return—and for his existence to be proven once and for all. 

And so, with his rhetorical question to the investigators, Pi takes us back to his promise from the beginning. While this adaptation of Life of Pi might not make you believe in God, it will make you believe in the power of stories to help us survive. 

Running time: Approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission

The U.S. national tour of Life of Pi will be at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater (2700 F St., NW, Washington, D.C. 20566) through January 5, 2025. The theater is accessible by subway, bus, taxi, and car. Parking is available on a first-come, first-served basis at the parking entrances. Tickets can be purchased here. A limited number of $39 Rush tickets (two max per person) will be available for every performance at the box office the day of the performance at noon for that day’s performances. 

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