Wait, is this a perfect play?
“Life of Pi” — now at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale through Sunday, Oct. 26 — is a dazzling display of theatrical visuals and coruscant storytelling so powerful, so enthralling, that it’s hard to imagine how it could be any better.
The play is based on the 2001 bestselling, philosophical novel from Yann Martel that delves deep into spirituality and became an Oscar-winning movie in 2012. This stage version debuted in London’s West End, winning five Olivier Awards before bowing on Broadway in 2023, where it won three Tony Awards.
“Life of Pi” is not a musical but has that multilayered, multidimensional poetry wound tightly in and around the production. The special effects, the puppetry, the music (nope, not show tunes as much as something akin to a movie soundtrack), the movement/choreography — it all works in symphony to make the metaphysical almost tangible.
Don’t let the puppets and the homespun humor, of which there is a generous amount, fool you. This show is born and bloodied by conflict. “Life will defend itself no matter how small it is,” one character says.
The narrative, epic as it is, starts simply. Pi Patel (played by boundlessly energetic Taha Mandviwala) and his family run a zoo in India. Pi has been raised as a Hindu, but he is equally interested in Islam and Christianity.
In this regard, the play is faithful and faith-full. It honors Martel’s novel in that respect and burnishes beliefs until you can almost feel the warm glow. “I just want to love God,” Pi says.
Mirroring those potentially fractious religious ideas he’s exposed himself to is the political discord and turmoil in India in the mid-1970s, which force the Patels to pack up their animals onto a freight ship and move to Canada. Disaster strikes when a massive storm sinks the freighter, leaving Pi on a lifeboat with an injured zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a Bengal tiger.
Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade2024
Taha Mandviwala as Pi Patel with the cast of the national tour of “Life of Pi.” (Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade2024/Courtesy)
Now to go into any more detail on the plot would be more than a spoiler. It would be a sin. “Life of Pi” needs to unfold before your eyes and inside your mind in order for the play to preserve its punch … and its gentle pat.
But it must be said that the framework for the narrative, and one of the production’s most clever bits, is that — for two hours including a 20-minute intermission — Pi is recounting his tragedies and triumphs all in flashbacks from a hospital room as he is interviewed by an insurance adjuster and an embassy attaché.
At least that’s on one level.
But on another level, a level so profound it is breathtaking, this play is about stories we tell in our religions, our faiths — at first spackled here and there in “Life of Pi,” but then increasingly painted on with the ardor of an artist, each brushstroke passionate and pure and sure.
It is dark, brilliant and (surprisingly) funny at times listening to and watching Pi’s 227 days adrift at sea through two lenses, one animalistic and the other humanistic. Is it fantastical yarn-spinning? Is it a factual account?
“We believe what we see,” the insurance adjuster concludes.
“And so it goes with God,” Pi responds.
A perfect answer.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: “Life of Pi”
WHEN: Through Sunday, Oct. 26
WHERE: Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale
COST: $48.68-$231.58
INFORMATION: 954-462-0222 (press 1); browardcenter.org
Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade2024
Taha Mandviwala as Pi, right, with puppeteer Austin Wong Harper in “Life of Pi,” playing at Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center. (Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade2024/Courtesy)
Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade2024
Taha Mandviwala, left, and puppeteers Anna Leigh Gortner, Shiloh Goodin and Toussaint Jeanlouis. (Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade2024/Courtesy)
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