What happens after we die? And when death comes, what was the point of all of that living? These are the questions asked in “Everybody,” a play written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and performed by the University of Michigan’s Department of Theatre & Drama under the direction of Andrew White. Performances of “Everybody” ran from March 30 through April 9, 2023, at the Arthur Miller Theatre.
“Everybody,” based on the 15th-century play entitled “Everyman,” tells the story of, well, Everybody, as they grapple with impending death and search for a companion for their journey to the afterlife. Encountering characters like Friendship, Love and Stuff, the story becomes a relatable part of any audience member’s experience, prompting viewers to ponder their own place in the story of life and death.
Unlike in most live theatre, the cast of “Everybody” is determined by lottery at each performance. Before the show begins, guests take a bingo ball and place it in one of several suitcases lining the edge of the stage. Throughout the first few scenes, actors draw from the suitcases in order to find out which of two memorized tracks they will be performing in/for that particular show. The cast takes on their assigned roles with readiness and enthusiasm.
Traditionally, only the characters of Everybody, Friendship, Kinship, Cousin and Stuff are drawn by lottery, and the five “Somebodies” double as Evil, Beauty, Strength, Mind and Senses. With a cast of 14, however, each actor memorized two roles, while some, like Love and Death, were double-cast despite the original script. This particular casting choice was ingenious as, at one point, Everybody wasn’t quite sure whether Love was Death in disguise.
The highly adaptable script lends itself to specific audiences, with this production including countless references to the University. The character of Stuff dresses as a U-M football fan, decked out in maize and blue and singing “The Victors” as they enter the stage, and the character of Evil explains how difficult the theater is to reach due to the heavy construction on Bonisteel.
Another stand-out feature of this production is the band members, who later become actors in the show. The band’s name — Bones, Bones, Bones — is fitting for the performers’ skeleton onesies. The group kept the audience engaged throughout the pre-show with charisma and enthusiasm, even improvising a song based on audience suggestions like “summer,” “cake” and “nap.”
For this performance of “Everybody,” Music, Theatre & Dance junior Abigail Labbé played the title role. Labbé slipped seamlessly into the role from the moment the bingo ball sealing her fate was drawn by a member of the band, a truly daunting task. She embodied everyone who has gone and will go through the same end-of-life questions as her character. Between interactions with characters like Friendship and Kinship, Everybody spirals into train-of-thought monologues about the life they are leaving behind, expertly delivered by Labbé. Each thought frantically follows another with beautiful realization, and Labbé stunned the audience with gravity, honesty and pain, asking, “Why did you have to live, again?”
The two characters called Ushers, played by Clara Dossetter and Maya McEntyre (Music, Theatre & Dance senior and sophomore, respectively) quickly reveal themselves as the show begins to be a part of the act, and bring the viewers seamlessly into the story. Playing off of each other as if embodying one person, both performers expertly switch between charismatic ushers, a human embodiment of God and even the concept of Understanding. The choice to have two actors playing Understanding was particularly striking; by the end of the show, the audience comes to realize that even Understanding doesn’t quite know what the point of the play, or even life itself, is, and having the two performers asking each other life’s big questions was beautiful.
Other standout performances include Music, Theatre & Dance senior Andrew Otchere as Friendship, Music, Theatre & Dance sophomore Myles Sherwin Mathews as Stuff, Music, Theatre & Dance junior Nathan Goldberg as Kinship and Music, Theatre & Dance junior Mary-Kate Sunshine Mahaney as Cousin. Each actor did a brilliant job of bringing a genuine personality to an otherwise non-personified concept. It is difficult to balance pointedly general comedic lines like, “Do you remember that time we all did that one thing together that one time?” with a human soul, and yet each actor did so beautifully.
Rounding out the cast are Music, Theatre & Dance sophomore Rohan Maletira as Death, Music, Theatre & Dance junior Emilia Vizachero as Love and Music, Theatre & Dance senior Stefania Gonzalez as Girl and Time. All three upheld their facades of intimidating importance while allowing truly human personalities to come through. The beautiful final picture of Death and Time stargazing in silhouette made the seemingly unreachable personifications seem like a part of “Everybody,” too.
The crew expertly tied together the show’s themes. The themed set by Music, Theatre & Dance senior Rachel Schlager, composed of geometric shapes and lantern-adorned trees at various stages of life, was complemented by gorgeous lighting by Music, Theatre & Dance junior Sydney Geysbeek. The use of house lighting is particularly important in a show involving so much audience interaction, and the subtle use of spotlights to point out emerging actors while the house lights remained on was just enough to push audience eyes in the right direction. Costumes by Christopher Vergara were also gorgeous. Particularly striking were Death’s suit with skeleton-like accents, Love’s Aphrodite-esque dress with beautiful anatomical heart detailing and matching “EB” blazer and necklace for Kinship and Cousin, respectively. These costumes were just symbolic enough to indicate the tropes of each character and their concept while maintaining the characters’ believability.
“Everybody” is a daunting and unique production to face. The Theatre & Drama Department did so with bravery and gusto. The cast and crew recognized and embraced the show’s dual nature of both oddity and relatability in what became a beautiful production.
Daily Arts Writer Max Newman can be reached at jqnewman@umich.edu.