This is the second significant London revival of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ play, and the first I have seen, since it premièred here in 2002 in a production by Philip Seymour Hoffman. On repeat viewing, it remains a series of incandescent dialogues (I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much saliva spraying onstage) but now seems even more morally and intellectually complex.

The situation is simple: in Riker’s Island prison – between the Perspex partitions on the long, narrow walkway which constitutes Magda Willi’s traverse set – are two killers. Angel Ruiz killed by accident, intending just to “shoot in the ass” the religious cult leader who “stole my friend” but who subsequently died in surgery; Lucius Jenkins killed eight people for no reason and is now awaiting inter-state extradition to Florida to be executed, but has in the meantime found God. An accommodating prison guard has been dismissed, and the two, as the only inmates of the isolation block, are overseen now by the gleefully contemptuous Valdez; Angel’s female lawyer believes she can get him acquitted without... at first... violating judicial ethics.

The apparent keynote is spirituality. Can Lucius persuade Angel to accept responsibility for his victim’s death, and then what? Is Lucius being honest about his own conversion, not to the authorities but to himself? What are the capacities of this attitude for redemption, either in this world or the next? Yet it gradually emerges that the life of the spirit is just one strand in Guirgis’ fabric. At every turn, we see a matter of responsibility or ethics from a different angle. This is not simply asking questions for the sake of it, or wringing hands because it’s all so dreadfully difficult; it’s clear that these are deep and pressing problems of how we live, whether we’re in Riker’s or on the outside. Even on the most superficial level, the portrait of brutal prison life and an uncaring justice system is achieved without any grandstanding claims of miscarriage of justice.

A traverse staging is often used to force the audience to watch not only the action but also our own collective responses to it. Director Kate Hewitt makes us aware that, in these legal matters, we are direct eyewitnesses. Oberon K.A. Adjepong’s Lucius is indomitable where Joplin Sibtain’s infernal Valdez is concerned, but finally begins to buckle when confronted with doubts by Ukweli Roach as Angel, a much less skilled disputant but ultimately more honest about his own uncertainties than Lucius’s prayer of, “Lord, I believe; aid Thou my unbelief.” Dervla Kirwan as lawyer Mary Jane Hanrahan has her own gumbo of principles and personal issues to deal with; this is the flintiest performance I have ever seen Kirwan give. Inter-scene music consists of bursts of free jazz dominated by Marco Quarantotto’s frenetic drum work.

In an astute piece of programming by artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah, the Young Vic’s Maria studio will shortly present The Jumper Factory, a piece created in collaboration with inmates of London’s Wandsworth prison, while Jesus Hopped… runs in the main house. It makes for a skilfully-knit fabric.

Written for the Financial Times.