(Chris Jones’s article appeared in the Chicago Tribune, 3/16.)
When Dan, the traumatized Irish widower at the center of Christian O'Reilly's "Chapatti," pictures his wife in the afterlife, he thinks of her as alone and lonely. "Incomplete without me," he says.
We are not, of course, privy to the emotional states of the dearly departed, nor do we know how much company they have around them. But as that very fine actor John Mahoney makes abundantly clear in this simple but surprisingly intense new play from a young Galway, Ireland-based writer of great promise, Dan really is speaking of his own depressed state and his growing sense that life is not worth living without his lifelong love.
Dan speaks for a lot of people on both sides of the Atlantic, of course, even if they are rarely heard.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/ct-chapatti-review-20140316,0,4909617.column