ONSTAGE: Jesus Hopped the A Train @ Albany Civic Theater

By J Hunter.

If you saw Harbinger Theatre’s productions of playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis’ “The Motherfucker with the Hat” and “Between Riverside and Crazy,” then you know the UAlbany alum does not do Happy-Go-Lucky Rom-Coms that climax with a Merry Mix-Up. Guirgis’ plays may have funny moments, but the works themselves get deep and dark as they dive into the characters’ day-to-day battles with real life. Harbinger did “Riverside” at Albany Civic Theater this summer, and now ACT follows up with its own Guirgis production, “Jesus Hopped the A Train.”

If you want deep and dark and scary as f**k, you begin and end with Rikers, NYC’s infamous island jail, although the plot points can be applied to anywhere in America’s corrections system. The lion’s share of the action happens in the holding pen of Rikers’ 23/7 isolation block. There, we meet our two primary characters: Lucius (aka “The Black Plague”), a convicted serial killer fighting extradition to a death-penalty state; and Angel, a hapless cat who shot a religious cult leader for “stealing” Angel’s best friend. The leader died on the operating table, winning Angel a first-degree murder charge.

You couldn’t find two more different characters in Lucius and Angel if you tried. Lucius has been in the system for quite some time and claims to have found Jesus along the way. He’s also got the “benefit” of extensive life experience as a drug addict in and around Miami. Nellson Moore’s Lucius is the sunniest serial killer you’d ever want to meet, always asking about the people in front of him. He’s made his peace with himself and what he did, and despite all you find out about him, it’s hard not to like him.

Angel is pretty much the exact opposite: An uncouth youth who lets his mouth get in the way of his life, time and time again. Angel is completely bewildered that he’s in jail at all because “All I did was shoot him in the ass!” He takes out all his anger on Mary Jane, an overworked public defender who gets his name wrong at the beginning of their interview. Josef Mendez, making his debut with ACT, has Angel swinging emotionally from pole to pole, so much so that it’s easy to think all he really needed was the proper medication. Despite his initial unlikability, you feel for Angel more and more as the system (both officially and unofficially) eats him for brunch.

Cecelia Gray and Thom Ingram (both last seen at ACT in “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead”) portray parts of this carnivorous system that are, theoretically, supposed to improve the situation. Gray’s Mary Jane is a poster child for jaded, and while she quickly walks away from her first meeting with Angel, she comes to believe she can tell his story better than anyone in the public defender’s office, all while finding a new love for her profession.

Ingram is profoundly frightening as Valdez, a cruel prison guard who loves having power over people who can’t fight back. His previous work experience was as a garbage man, and he could have been an inmate if things had gone differently. With a Rick Rude moustache and Big Boss Man shades, Valdez is your garden-variety bully who is probably in corrections because the NYPD wouldn’t let him carry a weapon. He’s a complete contrast to Jody Green’s affable D’Amico, a minor character who unexpectedly returns to give insight into Lucius’ ending.

David Zwierankin’s spare set gives you a taste of how brutal Rikers can be. The cage Moore spends most of his time in has barbed wire at the top, and bloodstains splatter the 14th Amendment written on the wall; the 8th Amendment is written on the wall of the interview area on the opposite side of the stage. (The saying on the set’s back wall actually appears on a wall at Rikers.)  Combined with Laura Darling’s elegant lighting design and Brian Starnes’ knockout sound design, Evan Jones has a well-prepared canvas with which to paint Guirgis’ all-too-human characters in vivid, heartbreaking colors. 

“Jesus Hopped the A Train” is not an easy play to watch, especially if you have the empathy Valdez lacks. But then, to paraphrase Tina Turner, Stephen Adly Guirgis never, ever writes anything easy. As in his other plays, all the characters in Jesus were forged in the fires of a pre-9/11 New York City where “F*^k you” means “F*^k you”, not “Let’s do lunch!” (h/t Henry Rollins) So while you may be shocked by the reality Jones’ actors present, in this day and age of wrongful imprisonment and vengeful prosecution, it needs to be experienced ASAP.

As usual, Starnes’ pre-show music sets the mood perfectly, pulling out prison songs by artists ranging from John Lee Hooker and Sonny Boy Williamson to Frank Zappa and N.W.A. Brian’s choices of accent music during the play were also on time and on target.

 

Pre-Show and Intermission:

“Another Night To Cry” – Lonnie Johnson

“Directly From My Heart To You” – The Mothers Of Invention

“Whistlin’ Past the Graveyard” – Screamin’ Jay Hawkins

“Chains and Things” – B.B. King

“Sinner’s Prayer” – Ray Charles feat. B.B. King

“Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” – Sam Cooke

“Jail House Blues” – Sticks McGhee

“Rosie Chain Gang Blues” – (undetermined – from the album “Negro Prison Blues and Songs,” recorded at the Mississippi and Louisiana State Penitentiaries by Alan Lomax)

“Locked Up In Jail (Prison Blues)” – John Lee Hooker

“Help Me” – Sonny Boy Williamson

“Going Down” – Freddie King

“Chain Gang Blues” – Kokomo Arnold

“Your Funeral & My Trial” – Sonny Boy Williamson

Prison Bars All Around Me – Junior Wells

“If I had Possession Over Judgment Day” – Robert Johnson

“Christmas in Jail, Ain’t That a Pain” – Leroy Carr

“Prison Blues Come Down On Me” – Lightin’ Hopkins

“County Jail Special” – Champion Jack Dupree

Music Used In The Play:

(Opening Scene) 

“The Tortoise, His Dream and Journeys” – La Monte Young

(Act 1 underscoring for Mary Jane)

“Night Train” – Oscar Peterson Trio

(Act 2 underscoring for Mary Jane)

“Bag’s Groove” – Oscar Peterson Trio

(late Act 2 scene transition)

“Goodbye to Childhood” – Herbie Hancock

(late Act 2 drone underscoring Mary Jane)

“Sadness” – Ornette Coleman

(Bow Music)

“100 Miles and Runnin'” – N.W.A.

“Jesus Hopped the A Train” appears September 26 – 28th and October 3rd-5th at Albany Civic Theater, 235 Second Avenue in Albany. For show times and tickets, go to www.albanycivictheater.org.