Starring: Daren A. Herbert, Xavier Lopez, Diana Donnelly
Director: Weyni Mengesha
Playwright: Stephen Adly Guirgis
Venue: Michael Young Theatre
Run Information: Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train is currently running through February 23, 2020.
Rating: ★★★
Stephen Adly Guirgis’s play has good intentions, but it is hampered by an awkward structure.
Don’t bring your pious grandmother to see Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train. The first thing that she will be greeted with is a slew of f-bombs that are too numerous to count. At the start of Stephen Adly Guigis’s play, Angel Cruz (Xavier Lopez) kneels inside his jail cell and tries to recite the Lord’s Prayer; but the bewildered young man soon becomes infuriated barely two lines in, confused about whether the second line is “Howard”, “hollow”, or “howled be thy name”.
Paired with Weyni Mengesha’s ingenious staging that places the audience in the heart of the Rikers Island Prison Complex, what results is perhaps the most memorable and hilarious opening scene in a contemporary play. And it seems that everyone on the opening night of this new Soulpepper production agreed, for the entire audience was knocked into uncontrollable laughter for the first five minutes. If only that level of energy could have continued for the next two hours.
Instead, the rest of the play progresses at a dawdling jog, with only moments of ardor sprinkled in between. Angel, we soon find out, was thrown onto Rikers Island for allegedly shooting a cult leader in the ass in an effort to rescue his best friend, or so he claims. He reluctantly accepts help from a female criminal defence lawyer who is drawn to his personality and also wants to take on a high profile case in order to make a name for herself. In prison, Angel spends one hour each day outside in an open air cage. There, he meets Lucius Jenkins (Daren A. Herbert), a born-again Christian and serial killer who murdered eight people. It is under the blazing midday sun (wonderful atmospheric lighting by Kevin Lamotte) that the two men talk about almost everything under the sun, from race and justice to religion.
It is during these scenes when Jesus takes off. Although Guirgis penned the play in 2000, the issues he delves into still resonate two decades later. Lucius’s line, “people start paying attention when white people start dropping”, seems to take on greater significance today. And the theme of religion, which is threaded throughout the play, will leave a lingering impact on the audience. The ambiguity of whether Lucius truly believes in God or is only putting on a facade because it is convenient adds a new dynamic to an otherwise mundane prison drama.
Lopez’s Angel is young, naive, and questioning of the world around him, the complete antithesis of Herbert’s Lucius, who is dynamic, athletic, and all-knowing. Both actors complement each other perfectly, shooting lines at a feverish pace from opposite sides of Ken MacKenzie’s austere set. But the real star of the show in Herbert, who deftly brings out all the nuances of his complex character, a mass-murderer and a flawed human who has been oppressed by the justice system and the society around him. His monologue directed at Jesus is both harrowing and hilarious and the same time.
As Valdez, the tough talking prison warden, Tony Nappo is wise to dial back the sadistic nature of his character. In the script, Valdez, along with Gregory Prest’s likeable D’Amico, seem to stray too closely to the good cop, bad cop trope.
Perhaps the second most intriguing character after Lucius is Mary Jane Hanrahan, Angel’s tough talking lawyer. She is the product of a justice system that is filled with egoism, corruption, and deceit. Unfortunately, Diana Donnelly fails to bring this out; instead she overacts in almost every scene that she is in, breaking the realism that is tied with the play.
It also doesn’t help that Donnelly, along with Nappo and Prest, are given awkward monologues set in the future that puncture the tension within each scene. Guirgis relies too heavily on this tedious narrative structure to drive the plot forward.
Nonetheless, Mengesha has delivered another fine production to kick off Soulpepper's winter season. The first five minutes alone are worth the price of admission.