Jesus Hopped the A Train viscerally confronts the audience with the difficult questions of ethics and justice, of religion and morality, of crime and punishment through sheer verbal and dramatic intensity (I have never read a piece of literature with such the comedic density of swear words prior to picking up this play). Guirgis thrusts the reader into a perhaps unfamiliar world of the criminal justice system in the United States, where right and wrong are shades of grey and not the clear cut black and white which officials would like us to believe. In a similar way as The Importance of Being Earnest, this play is a direct reflection and critical response to the social context under which it was produced, head on addressing and satirising the flaws of social institutions in their respective eras- Victorian England and contemporary America.
On Faith
In Jesus Hopped the A Train, the reader is made to grapple constantly between opposing perspectives on the role of religion and the existence of God through the conflict between the two characters of Lucius and Angel. On one hand, Lucius’s personal conviction in his redemption by God has led him to come to terms with his own crime and morality. On the other, Angel is disgusted by Lucius for his seeming dependence on his devout religiosity to alleviate his personal conscience burdened by the murder of eight people. “God forgives me for what I done, and he’ll forgive you too if ya ask him,” Lucius declaims. In a later passage, Guirgis complicates our sympathy in a poignant passage pointedly highlighting the moral problem of prosecuting criminals, that criminals are often the victims of crimes themselves, “Hold up now! Was it my free will to be molested and sodomized, abused and violated from the age a five? Was it my free will to turn ta drugs and alcohol as a result a that shit? Was it my free will to be a undiagnosed manic depressive paranoid-schizophrenic?! Nah, people don’ wanna hear ’bout none a that! All people wanna do is cry for the victims! What about my victimization?” Guirgis draws attention to how the current United States criminal justice system simply address the surface problem of crime, and does nothing to tackle the systemic problem of generational crime and social inequality.
On Morality
What is the basis for making decisions with moral ambiguity or contradiction? Evidently, a strict adherence the law or religion may lead to morally questionable decisions being made. Indeed, even the law itself is by its nature interpretative and open to the judgment made by the jury or judge. Why should this prisoner be sentenced to 25 years for this crime? Is life imprisonment capital punishment justifiable? What evidence is sufficient to “prove” something is true or not? How do you know what is true at all? These are questions that Jesus Hopped the A Train confronts in unflinchingly nerve- Lawyer Mary Jane’s cavalier attitude to fact and fiction driven by her personal morality that Angel should not be convicted; prison guard D’Amigo monologue in Act 2 Scene 3 monologue where he emotionally recounts Lucius’s execution betraying his struggle to reconcile his emotion with law. Characters like these force readers to ponder upon the difficult paradoxes of moral dilemmas, and thus invites us to examine ourselves and our actions. By rawly depicting the internal conflict which these people experience, coming out with a firmer moral purpose, Guirgis suggests that personal struggle is necessary if we wish to become more empathetic and ultimately, more human, in contrast to the cold impersonality of society around us.
Guirgis, Stephen Adly. Jesus hopped the ‘A’ train. London, Methuen Publishing, 2002.