Jesus Hopped the "A" Train: A Critical Review

Stephen Adly Guirgis' play, Jesus Hopped the "A" Train, is a curious juxtaposition of the vulgar and the sublime, the base and the heavenly. Incarcerated for shooting a man in the buttocks-ostensibly just to frighten him rather than to kill him-Angel Cruz finds himself arrested for attempted murder, a charge that becomes even more urgent after the victim of the shooting dies. Plunged into seamy prison life with its violence and crudity, Cruz's character meets up with Lucius Jenkins, a serial killer who has found God and wants to introduce Cruz to Him. While the premises on which the play rests-a shooting in the buttocks that becomes a murder and an encounter between the shooter and a veteran murderer that has had a spiritual awakening-are comical and refreshing, the play itself is brutal, and Cruz's experiences bring him face to face with ideas about God without actually precipitating a redemptive action or decision.

The opening scene of the play is one of the most intriguing. The reader is introduced to Angel Cruz as he struggles to remember the Lord's Prayer. Cruz is unable to get out more than the first few words of the prayer, however, before being barraged with profanity from his fellow inmates, for whom the standards of profanity are reversed. To them, the prayer is profane, while their own casual use of profanity is commonplace and perfectly acceptable. As Cruz works feverishly to sputter out the prayer, he is assaulted with threats and vulga

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