VIKA BAMBARA, Special to The Denisonian—
People want to know who else will follow them to the end—to death. No one wants to be alone and surely, no wants to die. No one is prepared and everyone will most likely be petrified for the unknown. Death, so to speak, is the unthinkable realm that we all must enter, thus, justifies all the more why we will need people or someone to go along with us.
The modern adaptation play, “Everybody,” by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, is based off of the 15th century morality play “Everyman” by Petrus Dorlandus.
Although the plot and elements of Jenkins’ adaptation are similarly interwoven with the original, Jenkins proposes a lottery system to see who will be next to die. To see who will surrender completely with another person as they are soon to face an end. The audience may not only be left with trying to understand all the incongruities of how to live, debating whether they lived well, but what it means to actually love someone.
The lottery system catastrophically changes the tone of death and love overall in Jenkins’ adaptation. There is no say, only do.
But most people look at death as this natural process, so the audience may reconsider their preconceived notions about death in that it is everything but natural, it is the unnatural. It is the one process where no one can wrap their heads around. Perhaps the audience will find out quickly why we need people. It is because we need comfort in knowing that there is still someone who will eventually go with us to the same fate, even when we cannot understand it. We hope to look at that as ‘love’ and if it really is something we know or feel in the present moment.
The new adaptation of “Everybody” seems to also overlap with a short story, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. Both plots have a name that is still chosen and will soon reach its end. But nonetheless, the audience watching “Everybody” will be left with a more emotional jolt because they will see one thing that the short story does not acknowledge: bonds that are unbreakable. Bonds so impenetrable that the audience will envy and hopefully crave the same result when it his, her, or they’s time to leave life.
This play is not one you can categorize easily, even though most will see this as a play about one’s morals.
But even more so, this play takes special account towards humanity, so if anything, it is a play about all humanity, what does humanity do when it stretches to the fullest (stretched to death) and who will follow who?
Those who don’t know their friends, their true friends, may want to reevaluate themselves.
All are probably familiar with the phrase “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” but why not change it to “Keep love in your mind and death closer” to keep in mind that you don’t have all the time in the world to live, so you must pay attention to those you love. You must pay attention to the ones who would go through it all with you, to the ones who will join you.