Arjun Bhasin outfits ‘Monsoon wedding,’ the stage musical.
‘Monsoon Wedding’ costume designer makes leap from screen to stage
The costume shop at Berkeley Repertory Theatre is buzzing with the sound of sewing machines in the quiet frenzy of tech week before a new show opens. Gowns of rich Indian textiles are being fussed over on dress forms, final details are getting added to men’s jackets, and in the midst of everything costume designer Arjun Bhasin is alternately giving instructions and cracking jokes with his team. Even though Bhasin, 43, has been in Berkeley a week, he says he’s seen very little of the city this trip. He exhales dramatically in mock exhaustion.
“Every day I have plans to do something out and about,” says the tall, Indian-born veteran of film and television and former GQ India fashion director. “But I’m always in the theater or the costume shop. The last time I was here was just for one day, but I booked a reservation for Chez Panisse two weeks in advance. I was the only solo person. People were getting engaged, celebrating anniversaries, and there I was sitting in the corner ordering everything on the menu like a pig. It was nice to have done that now with all these 12-hour days on the show.”
The show is Berkeley Rep’s world premiere of the musical adaptation of “Monsoon Wedding,” director Mira Nair’s 2001 hit Indian film about a family preparing for a traditional Punjabi Hindu arranged marriage. Bhasin, who divides his time between Mumbai and New York, also designed the costumes for the film and feels the characters are “second nature” to him. But it’s his first major theatrical production as a costumer, so he’s trying to figure out how to bring them from the intimate world of the screen to the full tableau of the stage.
“The idea of how the characters interact in the space has been the biggest challenge,” Bhasin says one morning during a rare break at the Berkeley Rep costume shop. It’s also not lost on him that “Monsoon Wedding” is a different type of experience than the average musical.
“I see a lot of theater, dance and musicals, and there’s such a dearth of stories about us,” he says of Indian characters. “It’s primarily a white people’s medium. It’s so exciting when I sit in the audience at tech and hear all these accents and see the colors and clothes that belong to a world so different than we’re used to seeing in theater.”
While showing off some of the finished costumes (including a spectacular men’s marigold appliqued jacket), he’s getting text messages from the set of another job, the
HBO show “Divorce,” starring Sarah Jessica Parker. An assistant sends pictures of possible looks, which Bhasin approves or nixes.
“Sarah Jessica Parker is obviously one of the most stylish people alive,” Bhasin says. “But starting the show was tricky. We tried to ignore her other show (“Sex and the City”) entirely and create a new character with a new life. It was exciting for her to reinvent herself into a new person.”
Before Bhasin has to settle in at the theater
for yet another round of tech rehearsals, he decides to take time to check out Berkeley’s Indian businesses on nearby University Avenue.
“You have to see Sari Palace,” he says of the two-floor Indian fashion emporium. “I know the people there; there’s a lot to see.”
The Sari Palace, as promised, bursts with saris, salwar kameez, churidaars, bandhgala and every other traditional Indian fashion. Gold jewelry catches the light and makes gentle chiming noises as it stirs. Bhasin greets the store owners and begins to peruse the racks of bright, embroidered fabrics.
After almost 20 years, why does he think “Monsoon Wedding” is still so popular?
“It’s very intimate,” Bhasin says. “It’s not a spectacle — it’s about family, and I think it really touched people.” He says there are other films he’s worked on that are “bigger, flashier, more glitzy” but they don’t have the emotional connection to audiences.
Bhasin heads upstairs to the men’s and children’s sections of the store. He pulls two long men’s tunics from a rack: He deems the turquoise one “beautiful but safe,” and says the coral and gold choice is “really fashion forward for the right person.”
As we leave the shop, he’s excited to see a poster for the show hanging next to the front door. The next few weeks will be. A film whose costumes he’s designed, “Three Generations” starring Elle Fanning, Naomi Watts and Susan Sarandon, opens soon. Then there’s the “Monsoon Wedding” opening night and the work that has to be done after each rehearsal and the director’s notes.
“It’s important for me to be here until it opens,” Bhasin says. “I’m learning something every day!”