Review: Why ‘Life of Pi’ is the spiritual uplift we need right now

It’s not every day that a Broadway show proves to be so right for the zeitgeist.

With its visceral nightmare story transforming into a sublimely told survival dream, “Life of Pi” is just the thing that the spirit needs at this historical crucible.

Max Webster’s production that opened Tuesday at Minneapolis’ Orpheum Theatre teems with spellbinding performances, mesmerizing puppetry and a message that’s a salve for anxious souls.

For belief in a higher power can help a person in dire, life-erasing circumstances triumph. And this metaphor-laden story of a young Indian boy becoming the sole human survivor of a shipwreck might just be a spot on spiritual elixir.

Adapted from Yann Martel’s 2001 novel, “Pi” is a sacred text dressed up as a winsomely theatrical stage show. In Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel (Taha Mandviwala), we have a protagonist for whom faith is not a destination but a quest.

When we first meet Pi, he is more a hidden presence than someone we can see — a riff on one of the show’s leitmotifs. A Mexican nurse enters an infirmary where he is supposed to be recovering but the bed is empty. She speaks to him anyway as if he’s there and leaves. Eventually Pi emerges and his gestures confirm his connection to nature — he grew up in a family-owned zoo in India.

Mandviwala delivers with an athleticism that shows the character’s physicality and connection to our animal nature. Both visceral and lithe as Pi moves between animal-like behavior and human longing for faith — the character attends church, temple and mosque — Mandviwala takes us effortlessly into the character’s body and spirit.

As he sketches that duality, he helps us vividly understand Pi’s catholic approach to being a believer, and how that proves to be a godsend when the ship taking his family and their husbandry across the waters to Canada goes down in a storm. Thirst, starvation and other privations cause Pi to have outbursts and trembling fear — desperate behaviors that Mandviwala vividly illustrates.

Ultimately, Pi has to forgive and tame a tiger that ate his pet goat and will just as soon eat him, and Mandviwala wins us over with aplomb.

Mandviwala is surrounded by excellence as well, especially the actors such as Ben Durocher, Shiloh Goodin and Anna Leigh Gortner who give such profound human emotions to the animals as they manipulate the puppets.

Jessica Angleskhan shines as both the concerned nurse and Pi’s warm Amma even as she helps bring Orange Juice to life.

Mi Kang is wise as Pi’s aunt and gently officious as the Canadian consul. Sinclair Mitchell gives Admiral Jackson, author of a book on survival at sea, a practical and comic edge.

Webster’s staging flows with artful lyricism, aided by lights and Tim Hatley’s scenic and costume design. Scenes build impressively and dissolve almost cinematically, and the puppetry evokes a whole zoological menagerie and is as good as anything we may have seen in “The Lion King.”

There are lots of survival stories going back to “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” All are about what it takes to endure. But with its virtuosity and vim, “Pi” feels truly inspirational.

This human-and-puppet show is truly the cat’s meow.

When: 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Fri., 2 & 7:30 p.m. Sat., 1 & 6:30 p.m. Sun.

Where: Orpheum Theatre, 910 Hennepin Av. S., Mpls.

Tickets: $47-$209. hennepinarts.org