Fear has cost me years of my life, it has been at the root of my depression, and it has inflicted a lot of real pain on me and, by association, on others. I have found that – for me – the only thing that truly relieves that fear, that allows me the liberation to try to live and to work and to be the person that I want to be – the person that I am – is to have some kind of connection and relationship with “God”, or, as I often rebelliously address Him – “fuckin’ God.”
I don’t want God in my life. At all. Ever. Trust me. And I don’t know what God is. But, what I grudgingly – very grudgingly – admit, is that I need Him. You may read this play and love it. Or maybe you’ll hate it. Maybe you’ll skip over it entirely, or skim it and get bored. I don’t know. But I need to say that, in the end, in the pathetic, sad hours, after all the cigarettes have been smoked and every tool of procrastination exploited, what got this play written was me getting on my knees on the linoleum floor of my kitchen and begging God for an ounce of daylight. And those ounces came despite my best efforts to ignore them. Maybe this only proves that God can help you write a shitty play, I don’t know. I’m not here to sell God. I’m the kid who stole money out of the church collection plate to buy nickel bags and play pinball – and I wouldn’t put it past me to try it again. But, this God stuff is true. For me.
Stephen Adly Guirgis
author of Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot
photo: Rob Olguin in Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train
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