JESUS HOPPED THE 'A' TRAIN: Guirgis, Donmar, till 30 March 2002
JESUS HOPPED THAT 'A' TRAIN: Stepphen Adly Guirgis
Donmar Warehouse (in rep) till 30 March
Tkts: 020 7369 1732
Review: Vera Lustig, 23 March 2002
Powerful prison drama, both claustrophobic and panoramic. A devastating picture of the America most Americans don't want us to see. Ace production.There's a springy tension to JESUS, a sense of boundaries being pushed to the limit, of good and bad impulses jostling for living-space. It's as though the characters' pain and frustration press against the wire netting that segments the stage.
Much of the action takes place in the exercise yard of a New York jail, where two men, each facing a homicide rap, spend one hour a day exercising, supervised by Valdez, a hulking sadist who threatens to 'show you a world where misery is like roasting marshmallows round the camp fire in your long johns'. Lucius (a limber, charismatic Ron Cephas Jones) is an addictive exerciser and God-botherer who, we later learn, has committed at least eight unprovoked murders. Enraged at his bosom-friend's integration into a cult, the confused, hyperactive, Angel (a phenomenal performance from John Ortiz, revealing the man's childish vulnerability without a smidgeon of mawkishness) shot the cult leader in the backside.
While giving each characters their own distinctive voice, Guirgis creates a highly theatrical, Mametesque idiom of punchy archaisms and religious references articulated in desperate riffs and free-association arias. The monologues at times have the feel of the audition-piece, but they're rich in insights that seem to ambush the speaker. Sometimes, though the characters' compulsive garrulity shields them from the truth.
So Angel's lawyer (Elizabeth Canavan too shouty in a delicately ambivalent role) tells Angel that we can never take responsibility for another person's action = even as she jeopardises her own hard-won career by identifying too strongly with her volatile client.
It's often said that Americans lack a sense of irony, yet this play is rich in it. Neither the unhinged Valdez nor his kindly colleague (fired for smuggling food into Lucius's cell) can penetrate the mass-killer's shell; only Angel can begin to chip away at it in a searing confrontation, cut short by Lucius departure for execution in Florida. And they call these places penitentiaries?
Cast
Angel Cruz: John Ortiz
Lucius Jenkins: Ron Cephas Jones
Valdez: David Zayas
Mary Jane Hanrahan: Elizabeth Canavan
D'Amico: Salvatore Inzerillo
Director: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Design: Marelle Sissons
Costumes: Mimi O'Donnell
Lighting: Sarah Sidman
Original Music and Sound: Eric D Armon
2002-04-04 08:56:25