New musicals don’t come any more delicious than Berkeley Rep’s ‘Lunchbox’
The cast of the world-premiere musical, The Lunchbox, perform a dream sequence about the good life in Bhutan. The production runs through June 28 at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre. Photo by Kevin Berne.
From its powerhouse opening number to its heart-exploding final moment, The Lunchbox is that rarest of rarities: a world-premiere musical that feels, from its music to its performances to its production, like it entered the world fully formed and glorious.
There are probably more difficult things than birthing a new musical (world peace, for instance or, apparently, democracy), but the creation of such a massive, elusive, odds-are-against-you piece of theater is a rough and rocky challenge. Berkeley Repertory Theatre has been down this road many times, sometimes successfully (American Idiot, Girlfriend, Passing Strange, Goddess) and sometimes not (Monsoon Wedding, Paradise Square, Swept Away). But with The Lunchbox, adapted from the charming 2013 film of the same name, Berkeley Rep has combined all the right elements to craft a one-act musical that embraces joy and darkness, sweetness and sadness, love and loneliness, all within a world of its own skillful creation.
That you can evoke a believable swath of Mumbai, a city of more than 12 million, with a cast of 13 is in itself a triumph, but that is exactly what director Rachel Chavkin and choreographer Reshma Gajjar do in their head-spinning opening number, as they introduce us to the dabawallahs, the workforce that miraculously hand delivers lunches – with legendary accuracy – to hundreds of thousands of people every day.
Caryna Desai Shah is Yashvi and Kuhoo Verma is Ila in The Lunchbox, a musical stage adaptation of the 2013 movie. Photo by Kevin Berne
The dabawallahs say they never make mistakes, and the right lunch always gets to the right person, but we wouldn’t have a story if not for a rare mis-delivery. Lonely housewife and mother Ila (Kuhoo Verma) is quite literally trying to spice up her marriage by making the kind of lunch her distracted husband can’t help but notice. Stacked in the tins of a tiffin carrier, the lunch somehow ends up on the table of Saajan (Manu Narrayan), a 30-year veteran of a government accounting agency where stacks of file folders, not computers, seem to rule the office.
Though only in his 50s, Saajan, a widower, is about to retire and quietly fade away in a retirement community. But something about the errant lunch, and the notes that begin to go back and forth between him and Ila via the lunchbox, pulls him back into the world of the living.
That an epistolary relationship can become so dynamic on the musical theater stage is credit to book writer Ritesh Batra, who knows a thing or two about this story, having written and directed the movie. Batra also co-wrote the lyrics with the composers, the Lazours, brothers Daniel and Patrick, whose richly compelling and utterly beautiful score serves up one astonishment after another (the thrilling on-stage band is led by Nathan Koci).
Chavkin and her team create a world that is at once specific to a place and culture (present Mumbai). The spectacular, towering, four-story set by Mimi Lien evokes a big-city neighborhood, within which we see small apartments, offices, commuter trains and streets.
Kuhoo Verma is Ila and Manu Narayan is Saajan in the sweet-sad, exuberant musical The Lunchbox at Berkeley Rep. Photo by Kevin Berne
The Lazours’ score makes specific reference to Bollywood and familiar harmonic structures that take us straight to India. But there’s a world of emotion that comes to life within this sonic world that speaks to anyone who has ever been lonely, desperate, depressed or hopeful.
Though Ila and Saajan are the center of the story as each reaches for a spark of hope to give meaning to their lives, they are surrounded by other characters looking for the same thing in different ways. Ila’s elderly upstairs neighbor Mrs. Deshpande (Anisha Nagarajan), who was only ever a voice in the movie, emerges as both comic relief (she coaches Ila on her cooking) and as a wife struggling with a terminally ill husband who has kept her in isolation for too long. At Saajan’s office, he is dogged by the man who will be his replacement, the over-eager Shaikh (Aathaven Tharmarajah), who also fits the role of comic relief until he comes more into sharper focus as anxious groom desperately trying to prove himself.
At just over 100 minutes, The Lunchbox bursts with story, emotion, dance, music and love. The superb cast, from the leads to the ensemble, heighten everything with warmth and exuberance. The voices are splendid, and the choral work is especially stirring.
The intimacy of the movie cannot be replicated on stage, but the internal lives of characters, which feel so epic to them, fill the Roda Theatre with voices and movement and the kind of musical expression of emotion that musical theater, when done right, does so beautifully. That’s what’s happening here to an astonishing and inspiring degree.
The Lunchbox, with all its extraordinary ingredients, feeds the soul.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
The Lunchbox with book and lyrics by Ritesh Batra and music and lyrics by the Lazours, continues it’s world-premiere engagement through June 28 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. Running time: One hour and 45 minutes (no intermission). Tickets are $25-$135 (subject to change). Call 510 647-2949 or visit berkeleyrep.org.
