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Chicago Tribune

Review: City Lit offers a challenging and poignant production of ‘Jesus Hopped the ‘A' Train'

Early on in 'Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train,' a sadistic corrections officer in Rikers Island prison compares himself to a cowboy in charge of cattle earmarked for the slaughterhouse. His grim comment sums up the central metaphor of this 2000 drama by Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Adly Guirgis, which examines the dehumanization inherent in our criminal justice system, particularly for Latino and Black men. As directed by Esteban Andres Cruz at City Lit Theater, the play's livestock imagery runs deep, from the piteous to the disgusting to the macabre. But there are more layers to Guirgis' play than this effective, if sometimes on-the-nose, symbolism. The script also probes the meaning of justice, the limits of the law in morally gray situations and the role of religious faith in an institution not conducive to redemption. With City Lit's production drawing clear parallels to today's headlines, especially through projections designed by Andres Fiz, this 25-year-old play feels disturbingly relevant. Recent University of Michigan graduate and Chicago native Lenin Izquierdo stars as Angel Cruz, a 30-year-old Puerto Rican man charged with the murder of Reverend Kim, the wealthy leader of a cult-like religious movement who claims to be the son of God. Desperate after his unsuccessful attempts to extricate his best friend from the church's influence, Angel resorts to shooting Kim in what he claims was intended as a non-lethal attack. When Kim later dies in a follow-up surgery, Angel's charges are escalated, and he faces a potential life sentence. Mary Jane Hanrahan (Maria Stephens), a plucky Irish Italian New Yorker, is Angel's public defender, motivated by a genuine belief in her client's cause and a competitive drive to win a difficult case. In a role reminiscent of Alfieri, the lawyer in Arthur Miller's 'A View from the Bridge,' Mary Jane narrates most of the play's legal procedures, as well as several traumatic events that occur during Angel's incarceration. Filtering key offstage developments through a secondhand narrator has mixed results; this dramatic choice adds some distance between audience and protagonist, but it also avoids the pitfalls of staging overt violence and keeps Angel's scenes focused on a more internal character arc. When Angel isn't consulting with Mary Jane, he spends his daily hour-long breaks from solitary confinement in conversation with Lucius Jenkins (Bradford Stevens), a Black man on death row for murdering eight people. Under the menacing surveillance of Officer Valdez (Manny Tamayo), the upbeat and chatty Lucius, who has converted to Christianity in prison, tries to comfort the shattered younger man and persistently proselytizes about his faith. In their interactions, the show really hits its stride in terms of dialogue and pacing, with sharp banter punctuating serious discussions of existential questions. Without attempting to exonerate Lucius, who shares some gruesome details about his crimes, the play encourages audience members to look beyond the orange jumpsuit and consider the complicated man and the circumstances that led to his horrific actions. This nuanced perspective is amplified by two scenes featuring another corrections officer, Charlie D'Amico (Michael Dailey), who grows close to Lucius during their time together in Rikers. The proverbial good cop to Valdez's bad cop, D'Amico narrates one of Lucius' most significant offstage moments, similarly to Mary Jane's monologues about Angel. In both cases, we hear about the pain of men of color through the voices of their white allies, a structural decision perhaps intended to protect actors and audience members from unnecessary trauma. Regardless of how the script reaches their characters' respective crises, Izquierdo and Stevens both give moving performances as Angel and Lucius try to connect over the physical bonds and the spiritual differences that separate them. Angel's tenderness and vulnerability also come through in his conversations with Mary Jane, especially when he tells the childhood story that inspires the play's name, and in his solitary moments, when he stumbles through fragments of the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary. 'Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train' occasionally loses steam in its extensive ethical debates, but when the play focuses on the humanity of its characters, City Lit's production is both challenging and poignant. Despite the distraction of a noisy fog machine, the livestock motif comes full circle in the end, when Tianxuan Chen's seemingly simple set, draped in a piecemeal collection of off-white canvases, gives way to a powerful final 'Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train' (3 stars) When: Through Sept. 7 Where: City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes Tickets: $15-$38 at 773-293-3682 and