The NiA Company

Angel Cruz is a Puerto Rican man in his late twenties. When his best friend is, in his words, “kidnapped,” by a cult leader, Angel despairs and shoots the Reverend in the buttocks. The Reverend is rushed to surgery from which he is expected to make a full recovery. Angel finds himself facing charges of attempted murder. Several days later, the Reverend is rushed back into surgery and dies on the operating table. Now Angel’s charge is first degree felony murder, for which he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Mary Jane Hanrahan is the Irish/Italian-American public defender who decides, depite a disasterous first meeting with Angel Cruz, that she will take his case anyway. She feels that he should not go to prison for life because he was only trying to save his friend from a manipulative false prophet. She coaches Angel to testify that he didn’t shoot the Reverend, fully aware that by doing so she is breaking the law, because she sees an honor in his actions that she desires to emulate.

Lucius Jenkins is a self proclaimed, “soldier of Christ,” whose knowledge of the Bible is so deep that he can recite the names of all of the chapters in the Old Testament backwards. His nickname, “the black plague,” was bestowed upon him in part because of his African-American race, in part because he brutally murdered at least eight people before getting caught. Explaining the unimaginable details of how he dispatched a little boy, he reveals that, “…It didn’t feel wrong. It felt good!” Yet he believes that in God he has found, “sobriety and forgiveness.”

As the play begins Lucius’s guard in protective custody, a kind Italian-American named Charlie D’Amico, is abruptly replaced by a masochistic Hispanic guard named Valdez, who treats Lucius as a psychopathic con-artist. He believes that Lucius’s unspoken fear that he will be extradited to Florida (where, unlike New York state, he would face the death penalty for his murders) is the only justice that the families of Lucius’s victims will ever know.

When Angel is moved into protective custody after an apparent suicide attempt, he and Lucius spend one hour of recreation a day together in adjoining cages, during which the harrowing questions at the center of this story unfold: If a murderer makes peace with God, should they be forgiven? Is it wrong for a person to break the law if what they have done can be judged to be morally correct? Is a person a murderer if their victim is not mortally wounded but dies while hospitalized? Who should be given the privilege of ultimately answering these questions? God? Man? The law?

Come see The NiA Company’s highly anticipated production of JESUS HOPPED THE ‘A’ TRAIN by Stephen Adly Guirgis and judge for yourself, but remember: be careful the stones that you throw.

THE NiA COMPANY PRESENTS
JESUS HOPPED THE ‘A’ TRAIN
by STEPHEN ADLY GUIRGIS
MARCH 24 - 26 at 8 pm, MARCH 27 at 8 pm and 11:30 pm
at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA LAB THEATRE
on Wheat Street, Across from The Sol Blatt P.E. Center

ADMISSION:
all 8 pm shows - $8 in advance, $10 at the door
11:30 show - $4 in advance, $5 at the door

ADVANCE TICKETS AVAILABLE ON-LINE
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