Jesus Hopped the A Train

“Its aggressive high-octane style is like a shot of caffeine straight in the veins” – Lyn Gardner, Guardian Angel Cruz, a poor Puerto Rican, isn’t sure why he’s in jail after shooting Reverend Kim, the born-again Christian who brainwashed his best friend. ‘All I did was shoot him in the ass’, he explains to his long-suffering lawyer Mary Hanrahan. But when the Reverend dies in hospital, Angel lands in solitary confinement next to Lucius, a card-carrying Christian serial-killer. Angel holds out that he was justified and his lawyer’s sure that a hearts-and-minds appeal will get him off at trial. But then, in a knife-edge final discussion before Lucius is sent to the electric chair, Angel extraordinarily finds that he too is turning towards the faith that he has so far shunned, thus jeopardising his own case against the born-agains. This is a truth-telling, cage-rattling play about faith, justice and diminishing options in an American prison.A 2001 Edinburgh Festival and Off-Broadway hit, the play’s London premieres at the Donmar Warehouse in March 2002.