Mystery pi new york
The crumbling, atmospheric Victorian Wilton's Music Hall is a great space for summoning spooks. The crumbling, atmospheric Victorian Wilton's Music Hall is a great space for summoning spooks Kate Kordel and Sophie Stone alternate the role of the mother - and there's a Disney ending that had the audience melting in oohs and aahs. Anna Marsland's direction also allows Christopher (a role shared by David Breeds and Connor Curren) flashes of sarcasm not much in evidence in the book. I'd also forgotten how Simon Stephens's adaptation uses strong religious and sexual oaths to coarsen the simple yet lyrical tone of the book, written from the boy's innocent perspective. It is still a great adventure, following Christopher to London as he tries to solve the mystery of the killing of a dog outside his home. Now, on a tenth anniversary tour, those graphics look a little first-generation. Marianne Elliot's National Theatre staging of Haddon's book blew everyone's wig off back in 2012, thanks to Bunny Christie's design using state-of-the-art electronic graphics. also attempts to take us inside the mind of its hero, in this case Christopher, a gifted, autistic 15-year-old from Swindon. I had the good fortune to be sitting next to the author himself: a warm and chatty man who seemed as enchanted by the mesmerising telling of his tale as I was. At one point, he leaps from the boat to escape the tiger - and disappears into the stage (through a disguised rubber valve), only to resurface on the other side. Geometrical shapes on the floor open as trapdoors for the hold of the stricken ship, and the lifeboat that rises up for Pi's voyage. Without our young hero's childlike wonder, Martel's story would not make a lot of sense and that wonder is recreated in Tim Hatley's extraordinary set. Pi, meanwhile, scoffs at agnosticism because it's 'a way of life that chooses immobility as a mode of transport'. Conflicts between Hinduism, Islam and Christianity are resolved by asking: 'Which is the better story?' Nor does Lolita Chakrabarti's adaptation lose sight of the play's spiritual quest.
Then the walls open out to reveal a teeming Indian market, and a busy zoo stocked with lifesize puppets - including two zebras, one hyena, an orangutan mother and cub - and the story's famous, full-size, man-eating big cat. The story of the Indian boy, cast adrift on the Atlantic Ocean - with a Royal Bengal tiger as shipmate - starts in an unremarkable, white-walled hospital, where Pi is being questioned about his remarkable survival. Geometrical shapes on the floor open as trapdoors for the hold of the stricken ship, and the lifeboat that rises up for Pi's voyage