Ahmanson Theatre – May 15, 2025
Okay, so I admit that I haven’t seen the movie nor read the book, so I didn’t really know what to expect. My impressions from the trailers I’d seen were “boy”, “tiger” and “boat”. Nothing like going into a show totally blind, right?
I got there a little early because I knew how parking tends to be at the Music Center. Even so, I was on level 7. I guess I was lucky I didn’t have to go through the tunnel to Grand Park. There was something at the Colosseum. I’m not sure what, but since there were signs directing people to the Colosseum, I knew there was something. Even so, traffic wasn’t terrible for a Thursday night. I had been watching Maps since about 5 and at first it had me taking surface streets to the 110. By the time I left, it had rerouted me up La Cienega over to La Brea and onto the 10. As I was coming up the escalator, I got a text from Julie saying she was there. She got there just enough ahead of me to park on level 6. They had an Amex booth set up in the courtyard offering some perks like a drink coupon. We didn’t take advantage of it this time. We were there early enough to find the step and repeat and take a few pictures, use the restroom and make our way to our seats. I had seen these tickets go on sale for $25 a few times without managing to grab them but figured I’d might as well wait it out to see if they went on sale again. They did. I ended up paying $22.50 for Balcony Row B.
The set was projections onto the walls and floor with some set pieces. It worked really, really well to tell the story. As the curtain rises, we meet Pi who is a clearly traumatized teen in a Mexican hospital, and two characters who are trying to get to the bottom of a ship sinking where Pi was the only survivor. As we flash back to an earlier time, the projections changed and some cage pieces came out on stage. Pi’s father owned a zoo and several animals make their appearances. All of the animals are puppets. The puppeteers are dressed in neutral colors, but not black. The scene changes are super smooth as the puppeteers and stage crew move set pieces into new positions. You can’t help but get drawn in. Pi and his sister are rather careless around the animals, so the father decides to teach them a lesson and make them fearful of the tiger, Richard Parker by feeding their pet goat to him. It does make them more careful around the tiger, but it also makes them hate him. There is turmoil in India so the family decides to move to Canada to start a new life. They load the animals in crates onto a ship and depart. There is a storm that sinks the ship and Pi ends up on a lifeboat with a few animals including the tiger and so begins the improbable story of Pi’s 228 days on the life boat. They cut back to the hospital a few times during the telling of the story and the segues are seamless. The boat comes together from two halves around the hospital bed and is locked into place on a turntable. It spins as he is acting out the story while projections of water make it feel as though he is adrift on the ocean. When they cut back to the hospital, the 2 halves of the boat are separated and pulled off stage and the projections change to reflect a hospital room. The whole play is really, really well done. While this is not a musical, most of the actors/puppeteers have a dance or movement background and it shows. Many of them are also high caliber Broadway actors.
Things happen in this play that were upsetting to me. I don’t do well when animals get hurt or killed – even when they’re puppet animals. If you are sensitive to that, be forewarned. I felt like the good far outweighed the bad (and the bad was my reaction to animals being killed, which was necessary to tell the story), so I would 100% recommend this show. It was definitely worth the price I paid and I think you might enjoy it too!.