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Jesus Hopped
the 'A' Train Stephen Guirgis' powerful tale of religion and redemption in the American penitentiary system makes a huge impact in gentle Oxford, with vibrant performances and the sharpest of dialogue. A pity, then, that the ideas underpinning the play are so hesitant. The play centres upon inmates in New York's Riker's Island prison, the "superstar" murderer-turned-preacher Lucius Jenkins, and the seemingly innocent Puerto Rican kid, Angel Cruz. Believing a religious cult leader had duped his best friend Joey with religious nonsense, Angel had addressed the leader as a confused boy might - "I shot him in the ass". Alas, The Reverend Kim dies shortly afterwards of a heart attack, leaving Angel facing a murder charge. To his defence comes Mary Hanrahan, an Irish American lawyer whose childhood memories of being the poor underdog makes her risk her career to save Angel. It is impossible to fault the cast. Stephenjohn Holgate wins the audience over with a tormented, howling Angel, matched by Rizwan Ahmed's scintillating turn as the Lucius. The dialogue between the two prisoners is electric - a smooth, accelerating rhythm which brings spontaneous applause from the exhausted audience - and is perfectly offset by Ben Levine's eerie prison guard, Valdez, who sneers, minces and threatens to enact acts of violence merely for his own sick pleasure. The directors are due credit for demonstrating that among Oxford's apparently white student body there are a few actors capable of playing Black characters. The set design - two cages split by a ladder up to the guard's balcony - allows Valdez to demonstrate his power as a menacing presence from above. This is a play about the nature of binaries and ambiguities, but Guirgis can't decide what to do with them. A prison drama with a religious theme allows for stark contrasts - guilty/innocent, damned/redeemed, incarceration/freedom, and plain old good and evil. Lucius is clearly guilty of murder yet believes his religion will save him, while Angel is innocent of murderous intentions yet without faith in God he finds only despair. And Lucius rails at the muddled Angel, "Maybe? Maybe? There are no maybes!" But then we have the ambiguities: Angel has a sneaking, private notion Jesus saved him from being splattered by the 'A' train when playing on the lines with Joey as a child. The sadistic prison guard hints at a hidden humanity in his final line. And there is the lawyer. In her principled fight to save Angel, she trains him to lie in court. Her efforts to be professional are so successful that she cannot hide from the courtroom her relief and pride in Angel's lying, which only serves to make him look guilty. She is fallible, human, and her actions decimate her own career and Angel's life. If we are fallible, then, do we turn to religion? Again, Guirgis makes no clear argument. Lucius attacks TV and drugs as addictions society pushes on its citizens to pacify them, and then is pacified himself through the Bible and dies high on cocaine and heroin. Religion has made the cruel existence on Riker's Island bearable for Lucius, yet it brainwashed and abducted Angel's best friend. Finally, whether through Lucius' indoctrination or his utter desperation, Angel turns to The Lord. The failure of the writer to draw any conclusion may have the benefit of forcing the audience to think for themselves, but in this instance makes for a less than satisfying resolution. Above all else, such a forceful play demands the writer to match the action with moral power. This will be one of the classiest productions in Oxford this term, and the performances are spellbinding. A shame, then, that Guirgis' talent for dialogue is hindered by a lack of moral and intellectual nerve. Ben O'Loughlin
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