The Lunchbox

The Lunchbox

Ritesh Batra (Book & Co-Lyrics); The Lazours (Music & Co-Lyrics)

Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Repeatedly in publicity materials, program, and even the pre-show announcement, “heart, humor, and hope” are the three words used to describe The Lunchbox, a musical now in world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.  And admittedly, there may be no better summary for this exceedingly enticing, exciting, and entertaining adaptation by Ritesh Batra of his internationally acclaimed, 2013 film of the same title about how a mis-delivered lunch initiates an unlikely bond between a young married woman and a middle-aged widower.  

Set in the bustling city of Mumbai, The Lunchbox overflows with the colors, the sounds, the mixture of cultures and customs, and especially the music of modern-day India.  With a cast full of Broadway and national-touring veterans of Indian heritage under the direction of Tony Award winner Rachel Chavkin (Hadestown), Berkeley Rep’s The Lunchbox is a must-see of a new musical that already has the look, sound, and feel of a future Broadway hit.

Immediately we are introduced to the heart-pumping, ethnic-beats of the music created by The Lazours (brothers Daniel and Patrick) as white-capped dabbawallahs on bikes and foot rush to pick up, sort, and deliver stacked, metal containers of hot lunches going from apartment kitchens to waiting office workers’ noon tables.  Singing in rousing harmonies of their no-fail rate, the same workers will later deliver empty tins back to their original kitchens.  In reality, over 200,000 lunches are transported every day in Mumbai by 5000 workers with a failure rate of only one in 3.5 million — a record going back to 1890.  

As they sing while vigorously running up and down the metal stairs of multi-storied apartments, we are in jaw-dropped awe of the city scene of multi-colored balconies, walk-ways, windows, and doors that rise three and four floors among the several buildings that Mimi Lien has so incredibly designed.  Soon, an entire building rotates to reveal the rooms and inhabitants inside.

And while the dabbawallahs end their pick-ups and deliveries with the reminder to us of their reputation of “no wrong mistake,” on this particular day, there is an error  but one that by the musical’s end may prove their claim of “no wrong mistake” to be quite true.

In her kitchen, young housewife Ila diligently packs the multiple layers of a tiffin box with delicious flavors she hopes will prove her love to a husband who lately has largely ignored her.  With a charming and compelling voice that will impress more and more as the story progresses, Kuhoo Verma sings, “It’s an idea, it’s a hope, it’s a hunch” that this lunch will do the trick.  

However, hubby Rajeev (Shiv Nadkarni) returns at day’s end only to stick his nose in his computer at the dinner table while oblivious to Ila’s attempts of affection. When he complains about a cauliflower dish in his lunch that she knows she did not cook, she soon realizes that the day’s returned, licked-clean tins went to someone else.

But the fact someone so appreciated her food that she could see her reflection in the licked-clear pans, Ila packs the next morning more special delicacies along with a note saying, “Thank you for making me in a better mood for an hour or two … here’s one more meal.”

Her unknown recipient turns out to be a quiet, mind-his-own-business accountant with salt-and-pepper beard, Saajan Fernandes (Manu Narayan), who is so surprised that his usual restaurant-delivered lunch is so tasty that he stops by after work to tell the sidewalk cafe owner (Vishal Vaidya) and his two cooks (Savidu Geevaratne and Benjamin Matthew) how wonderful the day’s food was.  Their shocked reactions lead to one of the night’s funniest song-and-dance numbers as the trio sings with full ebullience their astonishment while moving in a line of smoothly synchronized hilarity.  Gleefully they wonder in song, “Did we catch the bird of gold with our cauliflower?”

In the meantime, soon-to-retire Saajan — recently a widower who has no time or patience for office chatter — answers the next-day’s note from Ila with a “Dear Ila, the food was too salty.”  That no-thanks, salt-infested note sends both her and especially her upstairs auntie — Mrs. Deshpande — into a fiery tizzy, with the next meal laced with the hottest chilis Auntie can send down in a roped red bucket from her balcony.  Anisha Nagarajan’s Auntie Deshpande snaps with gusto a rap and a song that promises for Ila full revenge on such an ungrateful brute — just one of many instances for us to appreciate both Mrs. Deshpande’s spunk and spirit as well as a voice that rings with unique resonance, timbre, and richness.  

When Saajan’s next note acknowledges from him that both “salt was fine” and “chilis a bit on the high side” but does so with also some humor about needing two bananas “to cool things down” for food that “will be good for the motions,” Ila is quick to forgive.  Unhappy in her current, loveless life, Ila takes the advice of suddenly appearing women on the street below as they sing with rolling harmonies and inviting movements, “If they’re blocking off the road, you take a road you never took,” adding “if you get a letter, you reply; if your hear a voice behind you, you turn around.”

And thus begins a daily back-and-forth lunch-and-note connection between these two strangers who both begin to write about their lives present and past with details not always happy and with memories that bring tears to both their eyes.  These ‘hellos’ and shared epistles often become beautifully intoned duets between Ila in her apartment and Saajan in his office, with the impressive voices of each conveying in intertwining songs much depth of feeling, a gnawing loneliness in their lives, and a longing for something more.

But each needs also some extra push to take a next step.  For Saajan, that comes from a new assistant arriving to be trained as his replacement — someone Saajan has no interest in helping.  His initial coldness is hardly noticed by the bursting-in-eagerness Shaikh, who literally bounces around like a jackrabbit as Aathaven Tharmarajah sings with full perk and punch, “Train me,” saying he feels like Cinderella and sees Saajan as his “fairy godmother.”  

Even when Saajan retorts, “More like a wicked stepmother,” Shaikh is not deterred.  Slowly he breaks down the crankiness of his boss.  In a crowded train car that both share with a hoard of commuters, Shaikh sings how life in Mumbai is “Better Here” than was his life as an orphan in Saudi Arabia where he worked in three jobs while teaching himself accounting.  As he climbs on top of the train car and all the passengers erupt with much joy and jubilance into a series of expressive, Indian-style, hand-and-foot rhythms — just one more example of many eye-popping numbers choreographed by Reshma Gajjar — even normally sour Saajan cannot help but break into a smile.

Together, Mrs. Deshpande and Shaikh push both Ila and Saajan to consider new horizons and possibilities.  As Shaikh advises Saajan, “Sometimes the wrong train will take you to the right station.”  

Other motivators to make a change — happy and sad — emerge for each, often delivered in songs both moving and exhilarating.  News about a land where everyone is happy — Bhutan — becomes a tickler for both Ila and Saajan to dream, and that fantasy transforms for a few minutes all of Mumbai into a Himalayan setting with the a stage-filling ensemble bursting in color, dance, and song.  

Ila’s finally learning Saajan’s name leads her Auntie to play the music from a famous Hindi film by the same name, with velvety-voiced Mrs. Deshpande’s being joined from below by the alluring clarity of a dabbawallah’s fine vocals (Kinshuk Sen) as they sing a song of love.  A couple (Yash Ramanujam and Vain Mohan) dances a mesmerizing ballet on the street while both Ila and Saajan look and listen from their separate perches. 

Rachel Chavkin’s direction is a powerful reason the many scenes flow seamlessly and rapturously from one to the next, always with mixtures of that promised “heart, humor, and hope” showing up time and again in multiple ways.  Arjun Bhasin’s costumes are a plethora of styles and colors that paint a picture of a modern, eclectic, and fascinating Mumbai.  As has been mentioned, Mimi Lien’s setting design is in many ways one of the evening’s biggest showstoppers, made even more so by the multiple facets Bradley King’s lighting design provides the mammoth building, massive street-scene setting.  Justin Stasiw reminds us constantly of a big city’s environment with a sound design that surrounds us with the roar of trains, the hustle of vehicles and people, and the general aural excitement and surprise emerging from every corner.

On one street’s corner, Rohan Krishnamurthy sits the entire night playing traditional Indian percussion pieces while Arun Ramamurthy and Sahana Shravan often appear roaming crowd scenes with their violins.  Up above in exposed apartments are the rest of the excellent band conducted by music director and keyboardist, Sheela Ramesh.

This being after all a musical — even if it is so different in sound and setting from many we in the U.S. are used to — the ending is guaranteed to please us all and to leave both a smile and maybe a tear lingering as we leave.  This uplifting, feel-good The Lunchbox is another Berkeley Repertory Theatre new work that should have long legs into the future and be the Rep’s and Ritesh Batra’s gift to both the Bay Area and to the all lovers of musicals worldwide.

Rating: 5 E, MUST-SEE

A Theatre Eddys Best Bet Production

The Lunchbox continues in a second-extended run through July 12, 2026, in a one-hour, forty-fifty minute (no intermission) world premiere production by Berkeley Repertory Theatre in the Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison Street, Berkeley, California.  Tickets are available online at https://www.berkeleyrep.org/ or by calling the Box Office Tuesday – Sunday, noon – 7 p.m. at 510-647-2949.

Photos Credit: Kevin Berne