Chicago Shakes’ “Judgment Day,” with Jason Alexander and Candy Buckley/Photo: Liz Lauren

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“Judgment Day,” premiering at Chicago Shakespeare, is a fast-paced, laugh-out-loud funny play with a cast that ekes comedy out of nearly every line and gesture. Jason Alexander, who played one of the world’s best-known schlimazels as George on “Seinfeld,” plays against that type as Sammy Campo, a highly effective attorney and fixer. Campo twists the law and extorts his opponents into submission. Anyone who asks these days “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” might wish they asked for Sammy Campo instead. Sammy, like Cohn, is the kind of sociopath bulldog whose name alone promises his clients freedom to flout the law and promises his targets endless grief. But Sammy is funny, and a shrewd observer of the ironies built into institutions such as the law and the church. He takes barbed glee, for instance, in the fact that he can not only help a corporate client get away with serial labor violations, but can wrap the sleazy practices inside a charity to avoid taxes, too. 

The core action of the play revolves around Sammy’s attempts to do enough good deeds—the bare minimum of good deeds—that will get him into Heaven. During a near-death experience, Sammy learns from the Beyond that he is destined for Hell. The news comes from an apparently venal angel, played with jolly terror by Broadway vet Candy Buckley. The angel happens to be the afterlife version of the nun who was Sammy’s staunch teacher in Catholic grade school and who always saw him as rotten. The angel tells him that the path to Heaven would have been to accumulate more meaningful good deeds in life than bad deeds.

Sammy pulls through his health scare and lives, but realizes that his divine ledger has no good deeds to show. Unless he begins to pile up lots of them fast, he will be condemned to Hell where, the angel warned him, he will float forever on a river of hot diarrhea. Yuck! Desperate to correct course, he enlists the help of Father Michael, played sensitively by Daniel Breaker, who finds comedy in the quietness of his character as much as Alexander finds it in the noisiness of his. Will Sammy succeed? He sabotages himself along the way and also challenges Father Michael’s faith, too. Throughout it all, they confront some of the big Religion 101 questions about God and piety. Pascal’s wager is one of them. So is the question of why people are wed to the faiths they’re born into (yielding one of the funniest bits in the show). Heavy questions, but this is a comedy first, so they are handled lightly. An unspoken theme, however, is whether morally bankrupt people can also be the instrument of good. Though the show was written a few years ago, that’s now a question on which our national destiny hangs. “Judgment Day” veers a bit toward the preachy—albeit skeptical of organized religion—near the end, but the touch of sanctimony comes with some genuinely moving moments, too.

Chicago Shakes’ “Judgment Day,” with Jason Alexander/Photo: Liz Lauren

As George on “Seinfeld,” Alexander played a character whose neuroses and doubts stewed then exploded when he inevitably bungled. Alexander is a master of the funny-when-angry schtick because he brings pathos to the schtick. As Sammy, he has no neurosis to play with and for nearly all the play there’s nothing to like about him except his humor. Alexander has a witty script to work with, but his physical humor—both broad and meticulous—heightens the stakes and comedy of nearly every line, and every reaction, he has. There’s a lot of Sammy in “Judgment Day,” but I wanted even more. His character is written to be one-dimensional, a materialistic bully with no inner life. (Think of Dabney Coleman in one of his many delicious cad roles.) Alexander’s portrayal of Sammy, however, is a three-ring circus.

Playwright Rob Ulin is a thirty-year veteran of television comedy. He’s served as writer, producer and showrunner on a long list of sitcoms, including megahits “Roseanne” and “Malcolm in the Middle.” He certainly knows how to write for comedians who can make the most of mugs and gestures to enliven their lines and what’s between them. Director Moritz von Stuelpnagel keeps things moving. Literally. The production has the rapid pace of a modern sitcom. Sets move on and off stage nearly as fast as a jump cut, which also keeps the comedy fast-paced. One of the joys of “Judgment Day” is that it seems tailored for live theater, with its pace, volume of verbiage and surprise stage magic that delights a live audience in ways only possible in live performance. The most (minorly) distracting elements of the show are the most TV-like elements, including canned music between scenes and the aggressive amplification of the actors. Then again, on the night I saw the show, the audience was laughing long and loud, so the extra miking also saved some good lines.

As religiously themed plays go, “Judgment Day” is a light confection. As a comedy, it’s an exemplum. Amen!

“Judgment Day,” is at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, 800 East Grand, through June 2. Tickets available at chicagoshakes.com.