Ritesh Batra & the Lazours’ Dynamic  Songs & Dances Celebrate Connection

by Rachel Norby

We are living in a loneliness epidemic. Despite cohabiting with others, or living in a crowded city, people can still feel desperately alone. Setting this musical in Mumbai, one of the most populated cities in the world, makes the affliction even more visible and poignant. Even in the teeming city, people feel an acute lack of connection. And yet, we learn from this subtle musical, there can be hope.

Set designer Mimi Lien has created a stunning Indian city, which Arjun Bhasin’s costumes complement beautifully. Vibrant colors saturate apartment buildings three stories high. The central building effortlessly rotates, granting different perspectives throughout the production. The colorful streets of Mumbai give way to office and cafeteria scenes lit by bleak fluorescent lights and stacks of papers, a stark contrast that denotes the hollowness so many workers feel.

Each day, widower Saajan Fernandes (impressive Manu Narayan) orders and receives a packed lunch from a mediocre local eatery. Each day, young mother Ila (enchanting Kuhoo Verma) packs a home-cooked lunch to be delivered to her husband in the tall silver lunchboxes called “tiffins.” When the lunches accidentally get switched, Ila and Saajan form an unlikely friendship by leaving notes to each other in her tiffin.

Much of their correspondence is expressed through melodious songs and Reshma Gajjar’s exquisite choreography. Everyone in the show is constantly in sync, whether it’s a character casually eating while conversing or a group of blue-clad office workers performing a superbly choreographed dance on the bus home from work.

The white-coated delivery men, called dabbawallahs, bring pride to their flawless deliveries of the lunches, even while admitting that their one error might really be “no wrong mistake” at all.

Narayan expertly plays the dour Saajan. Though Saajan has accepted the monotony of his daily life, the emptiness he tries to suppress becomes increasingly evident. He delightfully sings: “You are sad, as I am sad, as everyone is sad, but it’s only deep within.”

Verma’s Ila is radiant. Unlike Saajan, she consciously yearns for connection. She eagerly seeks out new recipes for her husband’s lunches in the hopes that he will come home and comment on what she’s made. As her husband grows more and more distant, she feels increasingly alone. She gets hilarious advice from her upstairs “Auntie” (charming Anisha Nagarajan), who lowers a red basket of spices into her kitchen, high in their salmon-colored stone apartment building.

What each eventually seems to realize is that we can choose to make our lives worth living. We need not condemn ourselves to misery. When Ila and Saajan decide not to follow the same old dull routine, even by taking an action as small as writing a brief note, they end up setting themselves on a pathway to connection and happiness. Of course, the superb singing and dancing along the way surely paves the way to a brighter future.

“The Lunchbox” –book & co-lyrics by Ritesh Batra, music & co-lyrics by the Lazours, directed by Rachel Chavkin, choreography by Reshma Gajjar, music supervision by Nathan Koci, scenic design by Mimi Lien, costumes by Arjun Bhasin, lighting by Bradley King, sound by Justin Stasiw, at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

Info: berkeleyrep.org – to July 5, 2026.

Cast: Manu Narayan, Kuhoo Verma, Hashini Amarasinghe, Savidu Geevaratne, Akshara Gunda, Shaarada Trayi Karthik, Benjamin Mathew, Vaibu Mohan, Shiv Nadkarni, Anisha Nagarajan, Nasir Panjwani, Yash Ramanujam, Sushma Saha, Kinshuk Sen, Caryna Shah, Aathaven Tharmarajah, Vishal Vaidya, and Levin Valayil.

Banner photo: Kuhoo Verma. Photos: Kevin Berne