Lead actor Taha Mandviwala raves about Broadway’s ‘Life of Pi,’ which stages in Portland April 8-13

Published 5:15 am Monday, March 31, 2025

He’s a hired actor, but not too many people could be more bought in to the entertainment value, stagecraft, visuals and beauty, world-class puppetry, complexity and virtue of the play “Life of Pi” than lead actor Taha Mandviwala.

He plays Pi, a 16-year-old boy who survives a cargo ship wreck and the loss of parents and endures time on a lifeboat with a hyena, zebra, orangutan and 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. “Time is against them, nature is harsh, who will survive?,” publicity says.

It’s a Lolita Chakrabarti-adapted play based on the novel by Yann Martel, and clearly it’ll conjure memories of the 2012 film that received 11 Academy Awards nominations and won four Oscars. The play itself won three Tony Awards and Olivier Award for Best Play. And it’s staged, courtesy of Broadway in Portland, April 8-13 at Keller Auditorium. (Broadway tours mostly musicals, with “Life of Pi” an exception.)

It’s Mandviwala’s Broadway debut. He studied roles for the Broadway show, and then earned the Pi role for the tour. He has great things to say about “Life of Pi.”

“It’s such a beautiful show, about so many different things,” he said. “It’s a spectacle because of its design, physical storytelling, ensemble work and the story of ‘Life of Pi’ is a universal story of human experience, loss, grief, survival, faith.

“And it’s the story of immigration, as Pi’s family seeks a better life in Canada, a move from India that is the origin of the story — the length people go to seek a better life for family. Hopefully people come with an open heart and mind, and walk away with an audit about their life and spiritual life and sense of urgency to live life with more conviction.”

From publicity:

Martel’s extraordinary story of family, resilience and survival and the natural world was made into an Oscar-winning film in 2012. This breath-taking theatrical adaptation is a natural evolution for the source, as it utilizes the communal power of live storytelling and imagination, two of the other central themes of the original novel.

Staging “Life of Pi” takes great lighting, projection, visuals, sound effects, scene changes, puppetry and helping the audience members exercise their imagination. It’s about a teenager in a lifeboat and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, and it’s playing out in front of you on stage.

“The puppets are the sole driver of the dynamic sequences of the show,” Mandviwala said. “It’s a celebration of puppetry,” combined with what actors and ensembles can contribute to make the dynamics smooth and elements edgy.

“It comes together to create this beautiful feast of senses.”

Mandviwala, who’s of Pakistani heritage, is quite a bit older than the 16-year-old Pi character. He doesn’t like to talk about his age, but it’s pretty clear that Mandviwala, a native of London, Kentucky who grew up in Detroit, has quite a bit of acting range.

“My friends keep calling me a chameleon,” he said. “My genetics have very strong facial hair. I have to shave every single day and put on some concealer. I have a range between late teens at my youngest to maybe pushing late 30s with a full beard. It’s cool, it helps with work for sure.”

He added, of playing Pi: “It’s the most challenging role of my life, and that I will likely do in my life. It requires so many different parts of myself, a physicality that really pushes the limits of athleticism, as well as the puppeteers. For myself it really requires so much specific athleticism, springiness, foot placements. I’m really lucky to have a parkour background. Vocally it’s a challenge. Emotionally it runs though the gamut, of just this intense feeling of what does it feel like to lose family in a shipwreck, and the moments of peril that requires presence and being dialed in. It’s mentally very taxing. Requires peripheral senses. Requires so much of yourself.”

Overall, many people can come away from “Life of Pi” and be inspired.

“The story is so near and dear to my heart,” Mandviwala said. “What is the purpose of storytelling? Why do we have stories that shape faith and belief, and give us a strength? It’s an honor to get to do this kind of work.”

Show times at Keller Auditorium are 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 8-Friday, April 11, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 12 and 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Sunday, April 13.

For more info and tickets: BroadwayinPortland.com.