KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Lunchbox” at Berkeley Rep‘s Roda Theatre through July 5, 2026.
TEXT OF REVIEW
The golden age of the Broadway musical died over a half century ago. The post-golden age of Sondheim and the rock opera faded before the new century. Since then, we’ve had corporate movie adaptations, jukebox junk and an increasing number of parody meta-musicals.
But good and great shows do slip through the cracks. Hamilton, certainly, but also Fun Home, Next to Normal, Suffs and others. It’s quite possible that another gem eventually to hit New York, is currently at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre through July 5th, and that’s The Lunchbox, created by the team of Ritesh Batra and The Lazours. Based on a 2013 film of the same name,
The Lunchbox is about one of those one in a million chance meetings that change people and the direction of their lives. Mumbai, or Bombay as it was known, has a complex system in which business people’s hot lunches are delivered from home to workplace in the middle of the day via a phalanx of what are known as dabbawallahs. Despite millions of people and a gigantic metropolis, this system is incredibly accurate with spectacular on-time deliveries. But there are screwups. One day, a young wife, Ila, sends her lunch canister to her husband’s office — the canisters have multiple smaller bowls — which never arrives. Somehow, it winds up on the desk of Sajaan, an older widower on the verge of retirement.He sends back a note. She responds. He’s decades older, she’s married with a daughter; romance may not be in the cards, but connection is.
What makes The Lunch Box work so well is both its familiarity with musical theater tropes and its differences. You can hear a bit of Sondheim in the way music and lyrics meld to further the story, but there’s also the very distinctive sound of South Asian melody, harmony, instruments and rhythm, punctuated by Bollywood style ensemble dances. The result is organic, it feels right. The Lunchbox unites the two art forms into one, with the spectacle never overwhelming the delicacy of the story, songs, or performances, all of which, by the way, are very, very good, as is the gorgeous set design.
The show is kind of a miracle, code-switching in a way that feels wholly original, while maintaining the sensibility and sensitivity of its source material. A note of caution: The Lunch Box is a soufflé. Any attempt to fix it, to make it more big ticket-friendly, could kill it. The show is perfect as it is.
The Lunchbox plays at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre through July 5th. For more information you can to go berkeleyrep.org. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area theatre for KPFA.