True to their calling, the lawyers take too long to make their cases, and the prelims do drag on. Her legal adversary (Yul Vazquez) is an unctuous toe-sucker whose ulterior motive is to win legal passage to heaven by flattering anyone and everyone in a position of power. Presiding over a depressed portal of the underworld ironically known as Hope, Jeffrey DeMunn holds forth as the bellowing judge forced to hear the legal appeal brought on behalf of Judas by a scrappy defense attorney ( Callie Thorne), who has her own reasons for seeking love and forgiveness for a damned sinner. Philip Seymour Hoffman has done a spectacular job of mounting this bombshell for the LAByrinth Theater Company, which also went the distance for Guirgis on “Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train” and “Our Lady of 121st Street.” Treating the vaulted interior of the Public Theater’s Martinson Hall (distressed into shabby-chic splendor by designer Andromache Chalfant) as a kind of town hall for social misfits, Hoffman goes for a presentational style that restores the good name of old-fashioned courtroom oratory and gives actors plenty of space to breathe.
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