Lenin Izquierdo Photo by Steve Graue

The story centers around Angel, a young Puerto Rican man who ends up in Rikers for a shooting that ultimately lands him on trial for the murder of the cult leader who had lured a friend into the group. After Angel is brutalized while awaiting trial, he is eventually moved into a 23/1 section of the prison, where his only company is Lucius, a man fighting extradition to Florida, where he would face execution for multiple murders.

The two men spend their only hour of daylight in conversations that range from mundane to existential. They extend small kindnesses and wound one another viciously in equal measure as they argue about God, guilt, and the nature of good and evil. Orbiting around these central conversations are Mary Jane, Angel's public defender, and two prison guards: the human, if somewhat hapless, D'Amico; and the off-handedly cruel Valdez.

What gives the play life is the complexity with which Guirgis draws the characters and the lived-in details of their lives. There are no thugs with hearts of gold, simple monsters, or white saviors here, and the skill in how the story is structured gives the audience ample opportunity to engage with the characters as full-fledged people.

City Lit's staging capitalizes on the opportunities such a strong text presents. Rather than opting for the obvious bars or chain link or barriers of bullet-proof glass, Tianxuan Chen's scenic design drapes not just the walls of the space, but also the floor in an array of stitched-together tarps. This creates not just the violence of the prison itself (and, indeed, crime scenes), but also the sense of neglect and things stowed away, never to be remembered.

Andres Fiz then makes great use of these literal backdrops in their projection design to offer up images from the stories the characters tell, warped by emotion and agenda and time decay. At the beginning of each act, the projections also depict slaughterhouses, migrant labor camps, pandemic-era incarcerated people, and the infamous, horrifying realities of the CECOT "prison" in El Salvador, thus both underscoring the play's contemporary relevance and extending its reach beyond "simple" legal incarceration.

The lighting by Josiah Croegaert works well with the scenic design and projections to shift the action from characters' monologues directed to the audience back to "real-time" interactions within the story. Similarly, the sound design by Warren Levon weaves together spare sounds of the outside world and impressionistic pulses that capture the mind-altering state of confinement, isolation, and brutality that both Angel and Lucius endure.

The performances by Lenin Izquierdo (Angel) and Bradford Stevens (Lucius) are simply phenomenal. Izquierdo is authentic, whether Angel is drawing the audience and the other characters toward sympathy or frustrating the hell out of them. In this actor's capable hands, The character's arc is believable and wholly individual, rather than verging into any kind of stereotype.

Stevens is riveting in a role that offers the actor the additional challenge of finding authenticity in the character's more or less constant performance. Lucius had found God, and vice versa, and yet his submission to the will of that God, as Angel is quick to point out, finds its limits in Lucius's resistance to the idea of dying. Stevens excels in charming the other characters and the audience, even as he fully admits the horrors of his crimes, and he is not at all afraid to dwell in the ambiguities, hypocrisies, and truths of the death-row convert.

In the supporting cast, Maria Stephens does strong work with Mary Jane, though the character is not quite as robustly written as the other roles. In particular, Stephens shines when Mary Jane takes up the mantle of a crusader for Angel, not out of any simplistic and sudden renewal of her sense of purpose as a public defender, but out of the drive to win by bending the arc of justice her way for once.

Michael Dailey and Manny Tamayo also add significantly to the production's strengths as the sympathetic D'Amico and brutal Valdez, respectively. Dailey's performance in Act II is particularly effective and touching. And like Stephens, Tamayo brings layers to a role that is not quite as strongly written as the others. Valdez, on the page, is somewhat one note, but Tamayo lands the character's opening monologue thoroughly, which injects some welcome depth into what could otherwise be somewhat two-dimensional through the rest of the play.

Jesus Hopped The 'A' Train runs through September 7, 2025, at City Lit Theater Company, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr, Chicago IL. For tickets and information, please visit www.citylit.org or call 773-293-3682