The play, Everybody, by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins shown in the Signature Theatre was the modern version of the 15th Century morality play Everyman.
On Sunday March 12, 2017 the main role[Everybody] was played by Lakisha Michelle May. But the other days it could have been someone else because the five parts are newly reassigned at each performance by lottery. This is done because everybody played Everybody. And that’s what we have seen after Death has chosen the characters.
Here the actors are picking their role in the lottery.
Lakisha Michelle May(Everybody), left, and Marylouise Burke(Death)
As we saw in the play Lakisha Michelle May was given the role to play Everybody, but here David Patrick Kelly is the Everybody in this performance.
(Pictures from NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/21/theater/everybody-review-branden-jacobs-jenkins.html)
In Everybody, the Usher, played by Jocelyn Bio, helped everyone understand the play, then presented God. God then asks Death, played by Marylouise Burke, (also my favorite character) to choose Everybody. Death continued by choosing members from the audience. This part was a really nice start to begin the play because life is determined by chance so “anyone” could have been chosen by Death, but since only the actors knew the roles, Death chose the actors.
(This part was awesome because the actor, Louis Cancelmi, was sitting right next to us. It’s funny because one of our classmates actually sat in his seat and Candelmi asked to sit there but I saw no tickets in his hands so I thought he had the wrong seat!)
Death then chose five Everybody to bring to God. Everybody is chosen and asked to bring someone and Death allowed that. As Everybody tries to find someone to go along with her(in this case) long journey with no return from Friendship to Kinship then even Stuff, everyone/everything rejected her. She has been questioning life and if it was even meaningful. Even though she realized she’d be by herself she still needed someone- or something- so her own Love came to her and went with her to this scary journey and so did Hate. In my opinion that was the moral of the story, nothing or no one will be there for you when you die, even if they can, it’s just not possible. It’s just going to be you all alone telling God, how you lived using Love and Hate.
Other than the story I really enjoyed the large skeletons! Also, even though it was a lottery to see who plays which role, I would have never thought they did that if I haven’t done research on the play because they acted so well as if that was their role for years! I had many favorite parts in this play but my most favorite would be when Death showed up. She’s just a lovable character, and made Death not as scary as people see it as.
This play was amazing, and I think everybody should watch Everybody.