A Packet of Holiness and Joy Will Come to You?
by Beau O’Reilly
A Packet of Holiness and Joy Will Come to You? (A Fable) finds the citizenry of a major city moving in and out of love, working on the recyclable revolution, stealing to survive and practicing their pre-apocalyptic jokes in a city quivering on the edge of collapse. Part comedy, part warning, the play explores themes of death and communal existence with a wink and a song or two.
“It’s a funny and curious theater piece… the kind of curious you’d expect from Beau O’Reilly, one of Chicago’s lesser known creative treasures who wrote and staged the production. It’s 65 minutes of fun that's another example of the magic of live theater—an event you experience with other people, rather than alone on your couch.”
“The play’s many carnivalesque noises highlight this atmosphere. A slide whistle is heard. Roving cartoon rabble-rousers bark idea spittle into a cardboard megaphone. Scenes flow together with the blare (aah-ooo-ga!) of a little clown horn in Vicki Walden’s pocket (she has four lovely roles, including “Cliff the Lyft Driver” and an orphan who’s lost her dog). O’Reilly plays a lonely writer for a bit, but doubles the rest of the time as the drunk Hap Happenstance, who barters family heirlooms—including a “pencil sharpener that looks like Walt Whitman” (it does not)—for looted booze from a thief friend. Things end, after 65 minutes, much as they started: randomly and strangely, but with abrupt beatnik gusto.”