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Dramatics Society brings light to prison

By Gaveliers, The Gavel Media Team, on October 26, 2009 4:10 PM

By Lea Freeman, For the Gavel -

The Dramatics Society fall pro­duction, Jesus Hopped the “A” Train by Stephen Adly Guirgis, was a powerful depiction of the experiences of two men in the prison environment.

Directed by Haris Lefteri, A&S ’10, the play was presented in the Robsham Theater Arts Center at Boston College from Oct. 22 to Oct. 24 and told the stories of Angel Cruz, an inmate accused of the attempted murder of a famous cult leader, and Lucius Jenkins, a serial killer who murdered eight people.

“It asked a lot of questions.” Yuriy Pavlish, A&S ’12, who played Inmate #2, said. “There were ques­tions of retribution: under what circumstances is it right to shoot another person? Is it right to kill a murderer? What motivates murder? What does it mean to be a good person? What does it mean to save another man’s soul? The interesting thing about the play is that there are no clear answers to any of the ques­tions. It’s meant to get the audience thinking and I think it definitely ac­complished that.”

Jesus Hopped the “A” Train certainly did provoke thought on the part of the audience. Performed in the very intimate Bonn Theatre, it felt like stepping onto a set and taking a seat right in the center of things.

It began with Angel Cruz, played by Juan Rodriguez, A&S ’11, on his knees, failing in his attempts to pray to God. The next voices heard were two inmates above the audience.

“We were used to set an atmo­sphere. It made the audience feel like they were in a real prison.” Pavlish said, “The way my part was written into the show was more minimalist. We added a lot to the characters and I think that definitely helped set the scene.”

The play was nothing if not pow­erful, and the performances of its eight student dramatists were abso­lutely superb. Each actor clearly took time to get behind his or her role, and the play itself put a lot of emphasis on how the shaping of events makes a person who they are.

Monologues of the lawyer, Mary Jane Hanrahan, excellently per­formed by Elise Hudson, A&S ’12, gave particular insight into the seem­ingly small events that shaped her future. Moments like these felt more like intimate conversations during the show, rather than scenes observed from afar, and truly spotlighted the synergy of the cast.

“Each of the characters had de­veloped a motivation and connection beneath the surface of the play,” Pav­lish said.

The play was comprised al­most entirely of monologues and dialogues, especially between Lucius and Angel, which felt as though they dragged on a bit too long at times. A more concise dialogue may have had more power and held the audience’s attention better, yet the actors truly shined in their performance as these highly complex and conflicted char­acters.

The portrayal of Lucius Jenkins by Harry Jean Conte, A&S ’10, was particularly stirring. Conte created a character that was on the one hand spiritual and engaging, while on the other a serial murderer. Upon leav­ing the performance, I still wasn’t sure whether I despised Lucius or felt sorry for him.

There was a lot of attention paid to the production of the play. The lighting, in particular, helped facilitate the Jesus metaphors found through­out the play. Light designer Sarah Lang, A&S ’10, did a superb job of lighting the play in such a way that it highlighted the divine portrayals of the two prisoners. Towards the end of the play, it became the star of the production. It made it feel as though the heavens had opened up and re­vealed all the answers about society. This was only for a brief moment, though, before the play was brought back down to reality.

Jesus Hopped the “A” Train certainly tackled some weighty issues: racism, drugs, and prison-rape to name a few. On the surface, it was about the pris­oners’ interactions in their limited en­vironment—with the prison guards, and each other—yet at the core, the play was about so much more. It was a story about faith, retribution, right versus wrong, and the nature of hu­manity.

“It was very liberating to be that kind of ‘low-life’. It’s very real.” Pav­lish said, “people don’t like to talk about issues like that because they’re not nice, but they should talk about them because they’re important.”