Interviews

Interview: Playwright Lolita Chakrabarti Brings Life of Pi to Broadway

Meet the acclaimed writer behind the award-winning adaptation of Yann Martel’s novel.

This is a crazy week for playwright Lolita Chakrabarti. Tonight — March 30 — she makes her Broadway debut as playwright of Life of Pi, the award-winning visual feast at the Schoenfeld Theatre, from the novel by Yann Martel. Forty-eight hours later, her next production — a theatrical version of Maggie O’Farrell’s book Hamnet — starts performances at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Tickets are so hard to come by for that one that it’s already announced a West End transfer for this fall, and nobody’s even seen it yet.

But Pi comes first, and this UK theater mainstay is thrilled to be bringing her acclaimed drama to our shores. Here, she tells us a little about how this adaptation came to life.

Lolita Chakrabarti
(© The Masons)

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Was it your idea to adapt Life of Pi for the stage or did they come to you?
No, the British producer, Simon Friend, had the rights for the book and asked me if I’d be interested. I absolutely loved the book when I read it in 2002, but without really knowing how I would do it, I just said yes. I hadn’t adapted anything for the stage [prior to that], so I had no template to follow.

How did you figure out that template then?
My affection for the book made me follow the story and I just started working on it. I cut the book up and put it in different sections, under headings of “God,” “Family Zoo,” “Philosophy,” “Shipwreck,” and then I structured it. The story’s quite straightforward: this boy is happy, his family emigrates, they all die in a shipwreck but he survives. Within that, I had to find a dramatic thrust with all of Yann Martel’s amazing elements. It was complicated, but I enjoyed it.

Hiran Abeysekera as Pi and Fred Davis, Scarlet Wilderink, and Andrew Wilson as Richard Parker in Life of Pi
(© Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

Was the idea for the visual world yours?
It’s funny, because I didn’t have any visual idea. I didn’t visualize the show that you see. I came completely from the point of vide of story, and if the logic and story makes sense, then everyone else can riff on that. After I’d done the first draft, [puppet creator] Finn Caldwell and [director] Max Webster came on board, and then it became a total collaboration in how to make it work. We began five or six years ago with a prototype tiger — this was before we even knew what the show was — and it was basically a spine, some legs, and a foam head. Even with that simplicity, you could see there was something magical in it. As all the layers of design and video projection and sound and lighting and puppets were added, and then with the acting, it’s been thrilling. I still watch it now and I’m transported, which is saying something, right?

I didn’t think I would ever have such a strong visceral reaction to puppet animals as I had when I saw it, which is saying something, too. It made me so upset when they were going after each other, even though I knew they weren’t real.
I’m really pleased! We’ve worked very closely together so all the elements don’t sit on top of each other. They’re completely tied into the stories. It thrills me when the hyena starts to eat the zebra on the boat, and the hyena is pulling out these elastic red things from the zebra, and you can hear the audience’s reaction. When we put our imagination into it, all tied in with the sound and movement and lighting and music, it absolutely feeds into the focus of that moment. So, I’m thrilled that you felt upset. Sorry.

Can you talk about the differences between adapting something like Life of Pi versus Hamnet, which is going up right now at the Royal Shakespeare Company?
Well, there are no animals in Hamnet, and it’s about relationships between people who can all speak. [Laughs] It’s similar in that there are arcs that you need through the relationships: everybody needs to change, which is the same in Pi. But there’s a lot of effort in every moment even though every moment looks effortless. It has to be really written into the story, because the animals need to change, they just can’t speak. They speak in different ways. Whereas, in Hamnet, when something happens, the people respond to it, so it feels easier.

Are you excited to make your Broadway debut as a writer?
Beyond excited. I don’t think there’s a word for how I feel. I had no idea that this was possible. My first play was on 10 years ago after a long time of writing and not getting through the door, so to suddenly be here with a piece of work I’m so proud of is really thrilling.

The company of Life of Pi
(© Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

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