‘Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train’ review

Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stephen Adly Guirgis returns to London and is playing at the Young Vic from 14th of February to 30th of March. It is directed by Kate Hewitt with a fantastic cast and staging.

Originally directed in 2000 by the late Philip Seymour Hoffmann, this visceral black comedy is set in the notorious New York Rikers prison (that I confess I know about from watching Law and Order: SVU). It opens with a young Puerto Rican man, Angel Cruz (Ukweli Roach), trying to pray in his cell and having difficulty remembering the words to the prayers. This deeply conflicted individual is awaiting trial for shooting a religious cult leader in the ass, who he believed had taken his childhood friend from him.

He encounters African American Lucius (superbly played by American actor Oberon K A Adjepong), a sociopathic serial killer who has ‘found God’ and is ‘seeking’ redemption. Who better to test the mercy of God than this guy. His self-riotous religious sermons are eventually exposed in his sheer grandiose demeanor and lack of self-awareness when challenged by Angel on his actual heinous crimes. This is chilling. A lot of prisoners in the US ‘find God’ in prison. In some cases, it is genuine but with sociopaths and psychopaths like serial killer Ted Bundy, it is a tactical move to get more lenient sentences or gain sympathy with the parole board.

We meet defense attorney (played beautifully by Dervla Kirwan) who is of Irish and Italian origin. She is determined to get Angel off by circumventing the American judicial system and playing to its weaknesses.

The sadistic racist prison guard (Joplin Sibtain) is the most hateful of all the characters. He used to work in sanitation and now relishes in his new role where he systematically humiliates and degrades the prisoners.

While you could paint this play with a broad brush about American Society, the hypocrisy of religious types and the endemic racism in the US criminal judicial system, it is essentially about taking responsibility. What the play lacks structurally it makes up for in the intense dialogue and the amazing performances from the cast.