Divesh Subaskaran, right, appears in Life of Pi. He had auditioned for the role of Pi as an alternate in the West End stage adaptation of Yann Martel’s novel, while he was still in drama school and will finally take the lead role in the production's Canadian premiere.Johan Persson/Mirvish
The first time Divesh Subaskaran found himself in a room fending off a tiger and talking to God, it did not go well.
The audition to play the role of Pi as an alternate in the West End stage adaptation of Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi came when the young actor was still in drama school, where he was performing in another play. His focus was not all it could have been, and he regretted it.
Less than a year later, when the opportunity came up to audition for the role again, this time for the play’s Canadian premiere, Subaskaran was determined to give it everything he had.
“I just thought, even if I don’t ever get to play this character, at least this is mine for this one day. This one day, I am Pi,” the 25-year-old says over the phone from Toronto.
His efforts were so impressive he landed the title role in the production, which began performances in Toronto earlier this month. It marks his professional debut.
Anyone who has read Martel’s 2001 Man Booker Prize-winning novel – and many have, with more than 12 million copies sold worldwide – or seen director Ang Lee’s 2012 film adaptation, may wonder how such an epic tale could ever be adapted for the stage.
The story of a teenage boy who survives for 227 days at sea on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, a zebra, a spotted hyena and an orangutan after losing his family and most of the animals from their zoo following a shipwreck while travelling from Pondicherry, India, to start a new life in Canada hardly seems like an easy fit for the stage.
But like its titular character, it hasn’t just survived, it’s thrived. It won five Olivier Awards in 2022, including best new play and a history-making best actor in a supporting role award that went collectively to the seven puppeteers who play Richard Parker, a sign of just how impressive the animal is in the show.
The play’s run on Broadway last year also won three Tony Awards.
Subaskaran isn’t thinking of awards. He’s focused on staying in shape.
“I’ve got to be super limber because I’m running around this revolving lifeboat on stage, being chased around by a three-man puppet. There’s lots of lifts in the show, so lots of jumping. It feels like I’m part of a sports team,” he says.
The entire show is “super high energy,” he says. “It requires every single cast member, every single puppeteer, every single one of the crew backstage to be just so on point with everything.”
Life of Pi's run on Broadway last year won three Tony Awards.Johan Persson/Mirvish
Lolita Chakrabarti, who wrote the stage adaption, left how to deal with the action on stage to director Max Webster and puppetry and movement to director Finn Caldwell. She focused on dramatizing the novel’s themes of faith and belief and how both are shaped and enlivened through storytelling.
Pondering those themes is what helped make the book so popular and made adapting it such an intriguing proposition, Chakrabarti says.
“It was the question of, what is faith, and where do you place it, and what does it mean?” she says during a Zoom interview from her home in London. “On a very basic level, this is a play about struggling and resourcefulness and what do you use in those dark moments to get through.”
Those questions play out in almost constant action.
“It’s an epic adventure,” Subaskaran says.
And one he’s been dreaming of since discovering a love of acting as a teenager.
“Drama class was just such a safe space for me to just fool around and play these characters and be silly,” he says. “I wasn’t very academic, so I just struggled outside the drama hall.”
Born in Malaysia and raised in Singapore, he was eager to audition for drama schools in Britain, but his father insisted he complete his two years of compulsory military service first.
It was a long wait, but a useful one.
“I can definitely say that there are some experiences that I drew from national service that I definitely put in to this play, because that was a painful experience,” Subaskaran says, laughing just a bit.
Now that he is starring in the role, he is determined to bring all his energy and focus to each performance.
“That’s just me tapping into some gratefulness that I’m doing the very thing that I’ve always wanted to do all my life,” he says.