When Yann Martel’s book Life of Pi came out in 2001, actor and playwright Lolita Chakrabarti fell in love with its intricacies. Little did she know that 15 years later, British producer Simon Friend, who had acquired its stage adaptation rights, would ask her to bring it to life for the theatre. “I jumped at the chance,” she recalls, “though I had no idea how to approach it.” The 2002 Man Booker winner’s complexity, with its lack of a traditional central storyline and its compelling but fragmented chapters, posed a unique challenge. Undeterred, Chakrabarti took a highlighter to the book, organising its elements—family, faith, survival, zoo life, animals, and philosophy—into thematic segments that could shape the framework of her adaptation.

The story’s spine is straightforward: A boy, Piscine Moliter, emigrates from Pondicherry to Canada with his family and their zoo animals. Shipwrecked, Pi ends up stranded on a lifeboat with four wild animals. He survives 227 days at sea before being rescued. For the play, which will premiere on December 5 at NMACC, BKC many elements—puppetry, video projection, music, and sound design—have been combined to transform a flat stage into a dynamic seascape. Moments of the lifeboat battling rain and the sun’s oppressive heat feel viscerally real, and various elements coalesce to create an immersive world.