This is going to sound like I am damning The Lunchbox with faint praise, but the new musical's multi-level set, put together by ace scenic designer Mimi Lien, is terrific not just for its imagination but for the way director Rachel Chavkin uses it to help fashion the story and move it forward. Chavkin and Lien, who have worked together before on Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 (for which Lien won a Tony) and the ART production of Moby-Dick, create a whole world of modern Mumbai in the set, from the apartment of Ila, the lonely young housewife, to the upstairs apartment of her aunt, to the apartment of Fernandes, utilitized less often - but very effectively - on the other side of the stage. On the main stage is Fernandes' workplace and plenty of room for the Mumbai dabbawallahs - a delivery service that sends food to many workers, as well as other events, from trips on public transit to weddings and restaurant meetings, that occur during the eventful, one-act musical.
But I didn't leave the show just singing the set (although the design makes the mezzanine is a great place to see it).
Chavkin and bookwriter Ritesh Batra - adapting his own successful 2013 film - have a lot of ground to cover, arguably a little too much, but the effect worked on me in the end. It's both charming and poignant, covering plenty of dark territory that is both unique to its setting while being relatable to anyone who has lost someone important in their lives and is struggling with loneliness.
Until the tail end of the musical, Ila - portrayed compellingly by the gifted Kuhoo Verma - stays in her apartment, hoping to spice up her marriage, literally, by adding tangy additions to her husband's lunch. But the lunch is sent by mistake to Fernandes, a widower who seems resigned to an early grave and is taking early retirement. Verma and Fernandes, played by Manu Narayan, end up communicating by notes, at first humorously and then more personally. It's wasn't entirely clear to me why the lunchbox error wasn't fixed after the first mistake, but that's the story and we roll with it.
The gimmick is that Ila and Fernandes don't meet during almost the entire musical, and the housewife spends most of it in her apartment. This sets up a challenge for Chavkin and Batra, because any play - musical or otherwise - that doesn't have the main characters meet runs the risk of the audience losing interest. But The Lunchbox is not really a will-they-or-won't-they story despite the romantic comedy setup. Verma, a wonderful singer, does terrific acting work, often alone or talking with her aunt upstairs. Narayan, who doesn't sing much early in the musical, is given a trainee, who seems overly eager at first, to replace him.
The Lazours, a pair of brothers, write the score with lyrical assistance from Batra, and the songs are varied and interesting, if not quite as memorable as I would have hoped. But it's often a complex score with interesting twists. One problem that occasionally crops up, and this can be tricky with any new musical, is a difficulty in comprehending all of the lyrics, especially with the accents used by some of the performers. I'm very much a lyrics person so that was occasionally frustrating. It's not an issue with Verma, who is very clear, or the assistant Shaikh, played charmingly by Aathaven Tharmarajah, who belts out his comic numbers with aplomb.
For a one-act show, there is a lot of plot. And while that kept the proceedings moving along, I sometimes wished there were fewer plot twists and developments involving side characters. It's the early stages of an out-of-town tryout, so there are things that will probably get sharper. There are times I felt the comic interludes could be a little funnier, the choreography a little stronger. In fairness, the Sunday evening show I saw was the company's fifth performance in three days after a week that included Opening Night.
Despite a few quibbles, I really liked The Lunchbox. Verma, who I last saw in Octet and missed in Heathers: The Musical because she was preparing for this show, is able to convey comic frustration and existential sorrow in the same scene, and Narayan matches her. There's a sweet sadness, or sad sweetness, that's built into the musical - and I found it refreshingly adult.
Updated On: 6/22/26 at 04:27 AM
