Interview: Cast & Crew Discuss Dazzling Puppetry Behind LIFE OF PI

The stage production of Life of Pi—now playing at the Ahmanson Theatre through June 1 and moving to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts Jun 2-15—deserves all of its accolades. 

With magical visuals, immersive sets, and strong performances, the two-hour spectacle is loaded with enough theatrical sorcery to make its star tiger, Richard Parker, seem as astoundingly alive as its wayward lifeboat seems seaborne. 

Based on the Booker Prize-winning novel that sold more than fifteen million copies worldwide, the stage incarnation of Life of Pi opened on the West End in 2021 and won five Olivier Awards (including one for Best Supporting Actor for the team of puppeteers who played Richard Parker). It opened on Broadway in 2023 and won three Tony Awards, including Best Scenic Design of a Play and Best Lighting Design of a Play. 

“Much like the novel and much like the movie, the play itself is also becoming a bit of a global phenomenon, which we're really proud to be a part of,” Associate Puppetry and Movement Director Jon Hoche said to the press before the show’s LA debut.

If you've never read the book (or seen the movie), Life of Pi follows Pi Patel, a teenage boy who survives a shipwreck and finds himself on a lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. As the animals fight for survival, Pi is forced to confront the brutality of nature, drawing on faith and imagination to endure his 227 days at sea.

Hoche joined Assistant Puppetry and Movement Director Betsy Rosen, Taha Mandviwala (who plays Pi in the show), and three puppeteers who play the front, back, and middle of Richard Parker for a press conference at the Ahmanson to discuss how Life of Pi comes together on stage. 

Here’s what they had to say: 

What can audiences expect going into Life of Pi?

Associate Puppetry and Movement Director Jon Hoche:  I like to think that Life of Pi is a theatrical experience. It's not just a play. It has all the grandiose epic scale of a big budget musical, but at the same time has all the heart and pathos of a kitchen sink drama. So really, you're getting the entire gamut of a theatrical experience, along with incredible puppetry. 

What is it like for the actors to share the stage with the puppets? 

Taha Mandviwala (Pi): The way I normally love to answer this question is that the two sides of the brain sort of activate. On the one hand, acting with a puppet is not unlike acting with a human. The puppet, as a character, has its own thoughts, its own needs, its own obstacles, its own opinions—and you have to treat that sense of want with the same respect as you would acting in a scene with another actor. 

But on the other hand, you kind of lose yourself in the magic of the puppetry. You have to keep a logistical brain. I have three co-workers with me in the space doing a very dexterous and oftentimes dangerous set of choreography around this boat, and you have to look out for each other and make sure that the lay of the land is still good. But once you trust in that process, you really get to lose yourself in this zenith of imagination, of what it feels like to act alongside a living, breathing, wild animal. 

Do the puppets get special treatment? Or are they just “props?”

Hoche: We treat all the puppets as characters, as actors. We always try to refer to Richard Parker as Richard Parker; not like, ‘Oh, go get the puppet.’ Or, you know, ‘Go get the zebra puppet.” All of the puppets are named in the script. So, spoiler alert, there's a giraffe in the show—we've named the giraffe and things like that. 

Describe the interaction between Pi and the tiger, Richard Parker, throughout the show.  

Mandviwala: It's a relationship that we don't try to Disney-fy. We want to give the actual physics and sense of unpredictability that these animals would have in the wild, trying to really do our best to maintain that sense of relationship between man and nature, and the very fine line that exists between those two things. 

To Pi: How do you get the audience on board with seeing the puppet as a living, breathing animal?

Mandviwala: There's this concept in puppeteering that we discuss called the ‘fourth puppeteer.’ So let's say it takes three people to operate Richard Parker. So the fourth puppeteer is the human element that's outside of it. That could be me interacting with the puppet, but it could also be you as the audience. So it is that relationship that essentially creates the suspension of disbelief that this is a living, breathing animal in front of you. 

I think that's how you achieve the magic of puppetry, in its belief. I find that so fascinating—The technical aspect of puppetry and the subject matter of the show both coincide with this idea of belief, right? Like, the magic of the show comes through believing in these animals, in these puppets. And so it's really, it's a unifying achievement in both the physical storytelling and the nature of the magic of the show.

How many people play the part of Richard Parker? 

Assistant Puppetry and Movement Director Betsy Rosen: We have a team of eight puppeteers who rotate through various puppetry tracks in the show. So all eight puppeteers play Richard Parker for various shows. You'll come one night and see three people playing Richard Parker. You'll come another night and see another three people playing Richard Parker. Which is really cool because each of those iterations gives a slightly different vibe and energy to Richard, but in any one show, you'll see three puppeteers.

How do they work together? 

Rosen: So there's a head puppeteer, a heart puppeteer, and a hind puppeteer. The head puppeteer holds the handle for the head . . . their main job is to manipulate the head—the ears move, the jaw moves, so there's triggers all in that handle to be able to do that, and then the handle on the back of the spine is a communication point between the head puppeteer and the heart puppeteer. The heart puppeteer moves the front paws of the tiger and is also in charge of giving the weight and the gravity of the animal as they moves.  And the hind puppeteer, who does a really good job of hiding a lot of the time, manipulates the back paws of the puppet and the tail in addition to keeping the walking.

Do the puppeteers talk to each other during the show? 

Rosen: All the puppeteers are miked live, so all of the sounds for all of the different animals, including Richard Parker, are made live during the show. And because we are miked, we can't speak to each other, so all of our communication happens through breath.

How do you use breath to communicate? 

Aaron Haskell, head puppeteer: One very easy way is just by heightening my breath if we are to do something. So if we jump up on something, you might hear a bit of a [breath sound] before we jump on. And then there's the physical action of me pressing onto the spine so that Anna [the heart puppeteer] knows when to go.  

To the puppeteers: Tell us more about how this works!  

Haskell (head puppeteer):  We obviously play three very different parts. The head is kind of the observer, the first thing that sees the outside world. And then we do a lot of what's called ‘passing the ball.’ So I have to react to what I see. And then I pass that information on physically and breathwise to the heart puppeteer. We then place the middle ground to the hind, who also does the tail. And yeah, as the head puppeteer, it's reacting a lot with Pi, seeing everything that Pi is seeing. It’s a lot of just being able to see the world and bring that outside into the puppet so that we can translate that back to the audience.  

Anna Vomáčka (heart puppeteer): I operate the front two paws of the tiger. The spine of the tiger kind of rests along my spine. So I am responsible for the stepping of the front two paws and articulating through the front two paws, as well as bringing breath and movement into the cage of the tiger and bringing that to life. 

Anna Leigh Gortner (hind puppeteer): My main job is listening to my two other puppeteers so I can keep rhythm in the back legs. And then I also have the emotional indicator of the tail.  

To the hind and heart puppeteer: It must be so hard on your body to be crouched down during the whole show. How do you keep in shape for that? 

Vomáčka: We have a PT that travels with us, and she's definitely a lifeline. I think, especially as puppeteers in Life of Pi, we see her a lot, and she's just incredible. We have an ice bath, and that's really fun. And then we all take a lot of time to do our own movement practices. 

How heavy is the Richard Parker puppet?  

Vomáčka: He’s 35 pounds.  

How did you audition for the part? 

Haskell: Auditioning for puppet shows actually is really cool. You still have the pressure of wanting to be awesome and show yourself and be great and everything, but because you have to work as a team, it almost turns into a really cool master class because you have to work together. . . . They just throw you into it. They don't expect you to be perfect, obviously, because you're just getting to know this new thing. But we would just switch around different parts, and different people playing different parts. I never have done the heart because I'm a little too big for that, but you just get thrown into it, and then you just keep on trying different parts and different people and see where it works the best. It's a very cool process, actually.

How do the puppeteers prep for their roles? 

Haskell: We did a lot of watching videos of animals and listening to the sounds that they make, doing field research on our devices, or people go to the zoos a lot in different cities to re-up that information on how these animals are and how we can embody that in ourselves.

Life of Pi is playing at the Ahmanson Theatre May 6- June 1 before moving to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts June 3-15. Tickets are available at CenterTheatreGroup.org and scfta.org/lifeofpi.

*Images courtesy Life of Pi National Tour

To post a comment, you must register and login.