''Everybody'' is a play written by

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is an American playwright. He won the 2014 Obie Award for Best New American Play for his plays '' Appropriate'' and '' An Octoroon''. His plays '' Gloria'' and '' Everybody'' were finalists for the 2016 and 2018 Pulitzer ...

. It is a modern adaptation of the 15th-century

morality play The morality play is a genre of medieval and early Tudor drama. The term is used by scholars of literary and dramatic history to refer to a genre of play texts from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries that feature personified concepts ( ...

Everyman The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character, the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them. Origin The term ''everyman'' was used as early as ...

'', one of the first recorded plays in the English language. The play premiered

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

at the Irene Diamond Stage at

Signature Theatre Company Signature Theatre Company is an American theatre based in Manhattan, New York. It was founded in 1991 by James Houghton and is now led by Artistic Director Paige Evans. Signature is known for their season-long focus on one artist's work. It has be ...

on February 21, 2017 with previews beginning January 31, 2017 and a closing date of March 19, 2017. The play features the unique casting quirk of using a lottery system to define the roles of the play. Each actor must memorize the entire script and be prepared to play any role. This is meant to symbolize the randomness of death. The original production was directed by Lila Neugebauer and featured an ensemble of nine performers.

Plot

The story is kept largely the same as ''Everyman'' with a few exceptions. Fellowship, Kindred, Goods, Discretion, Five Wits, and Knowledge are renamed Friendship, Kinship, Stuff, Mind, Five Senses, and Understanding respectively. Additionally the scene where Everyman must whip himself for Confession is changed to a scene where they are instructed by the drill seargant-esque Love to strip naked and shout about existential dread. Also instead of Good Deeds following Everyman/Everybody to the grave, in this play that role is filled by Love. The story is also interspersed with pre-recorded voiceover scenes done fully in the dark, depicting four of Everybody's friends comforting them at their deathbed and through a misunderstanding eventually turns into a discussion on

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

Cast and characters

Reception

Ben Brantley Benjamin D. Brantley (born October 26, 1954) is an American theater critic, journalist, editor, publisher and writer. He served as the chief theater critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1996 to 2017, and as co-chief theater critic from 2017 to ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' gave the show a lukewarm review, saying that the concept was interesting and it had value as an acting exercise, but claimed that the show was "saying what is essentially the same thing again and again and again" and that the pre-recorded sections felt like "unnecessary afterthoughts." Marilyn Stasio of ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' said "Something is inevitably lost in adapting the material for a modern audience that has outgrown its fear and awe of hellfire and damnation. But the story retains some power on a human level, and Jacobs-Jenkins plays up the randomness of death and the universality of the human condition by casting most of the major roles in this show by lottery at each performance."

Awards and nominations

Original Off-Broadway production

References

{{reflist 2017 plays Off-Broadway plays Metafiction Plays based on other plays Existentialist plays Everyman