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Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a playwright whose plays include Girls (Yale Rep), Everybody (Signature. Theatre; Pulitzer Prize finalist), ...
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Study Guide EVERYBODY Created as part of the Dramaturgy by Students program by: Courtney Moors-Hornick, Teaching Artist and Liz Davis, Head of Secondary Curriculum & Partnerships By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Co-Directed by Susan V. Booth & Tinashe Kajese-Bolden September 2 – October 2 , 202 2 Coca-Cola Stage Recommended for Grades 9- 12 Content Advisory: Contains explicit language
Synopsis In EVERYBODY, Everybody is a happy person, a free person, a person who believes nothing but the best lies ahead. Then Death comes calling, and Everybody must go on a journey to find what has had lasting significance in his lifetime. Inspired by the 15th century play Everyman, EVERYBODY explores the meaning of life and the roles we play along the way. In keeping with life’s random twists and turns, the play’s performers draw names on stage each night to determine which actor will play each character in that performance. Remixing the archetypal medieval morality play into an explosive experiment of wit and emotion, EVERYBODY is a “sunny, stunning journey from life to death” that “fills the heart in a new and unexpected way” (DC Theatre Scene & The New Yorker). Author Study Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a playwright whose plays include Girls (Yale Rep), Everybody (Signature Theatre; Pulitzer Prize finalist), War (world premiere, Yale Rep; LCT3), Gloria (Vineyard Theatre; Pulitzer Prize finalist), Appropriate (Signature Theatre; OBIE Award), An Octoroon (Soho Rep.; OBIE Award), and Neighbors (The Public Theater). A Residency Five playwright at Signature Theatre, his most recent honors include the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright from the London Evening Standard, a London Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwriting, a MacArthur Fellowship, the Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama, the Benjamin H. Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Steinberg Playwriting Award, and the inaugural Tennessee Williams Award. Jacobs-Jenkins is a Professor in the Practice of Theater and Performance Studies at Yale, and has taught at NYU, Juilliard, Hunter College, and the University of Texas-Austin. Source: https://fas.yale.edu/book/new-fas-faculty- 2021 - 22/new-ladder-faculty-and-professors- 2021 - 22/humanities/branden-jacobs
Vocabulary A list of advanced vocabulary terms used throughout the script is provided below, in order of appearance. Word Used in Context Definition Treatise (noun)
PLAY (page 7 ) A written work dealing formally and systematically with a subject. Bonbon (noun) “If you answered “yes” to any of these questions and are now even remotely entertaining the notion of a cough drop, hard candy, or bonbon, now’s your time to deal with that. I’ll wait until it’s clear to me that all candies and cough drops are unwrapped and/or consumed…” (page 8) A piece of candy, especially one covered with chocolate. Purported (adjective) “Now, the original play, Everyman, purported to be about Life and its transience, which is to say it was really, I guess, about Death.” (page 9) Appearing or stated to be true, though not necessarily so; alleged. Transience (noun) “Now, the original play, Everyman, purported to be about Life and its transience, which is to say it was really, I guess, about Death.” (page 9) The state or fact of lasting only for a short time; transitory nature. Unfathomable (adjective) “…and let’s call that ‘Hell,’ this state of eternal, unfathomable suffering.” (page 9) Incapable of being fully explored or understood. Vis-à-vis (noun) “So think about that and what you want to do with the rest of your life, vis-à-vis that.” (page 10) In relation to; with regard to. Belittles (verb)
BELITTLES ME?” (page 10) Make (someone or something) seem unimportant. Infinite (adjective)
ITS INFINITE TRICKS ON ME.” (page 11) Limitless or endless in space, extent, or size; impossible to measure or calculate. Vessel (noun)
(page 11) (Chiefly in or alluding to biblical use) A person, especially regarded as holding or embodying a particular quality. Omniscient (adjective)
OMNIPRESENT?” (page 11) Knowing everything.
Source Text: EVERYMAN , a Morality Play A source text is an original text that inspires a new idea or work. EVERYBODY was inspired by the 15th century morality play Everyman. Morality Plays were allegorical dramas (stories that use symbolism to convey a hidden moral meaning) popular in the 15th^ and 16th^ centuries. In these plays, flawed human characters came into contact with characters who personified moral qualities and learned a lesson or moral by the play’s end. The plot of EVERYBODY draws heavily from the source text Everyman and even features some direct quotes from the original morality play. The titles of both plays refer to the main character (Everyman or Everybody), who embodies all of humanity. Many of the supporting characters from Everyman remain the same in the newer adaptation, but some have been renamed to reflect our modern times (for example, the character “Goods” in Everyman is named “Stuff” in EVERYBODY ). Jacobs-Jenkins’s modern take places a centuries-old story in the present day, drawing parallels between the medieval anxieties about death and modern existential dread surrounding the meaning of life and what happens after we die. EVERYBODY employs humor and modern jargon (or slang) to explore themes of self, the value of life, and the inevitability of death, making it accessible to modern day audiences. Learn more about morality plays here: https://www.britannica.com/art/morality-play-dramatic-genre Source: www.luminarium.org/medlit/intro.htm
Side-by-Side Text Analysis Below is a side-by-side comparison of the same scene from Everyman and EVERYBODY. Close read each text, pausing to compare and contrast the word choice, syntax, and tone in the two selections. Source Text: Everyman Adapted Text: EVERYBODY: GOD: Every man liveth so after his own pleasure, And yet of their life they be nothing sure. I see the more that I them forbear, The worse they be from year to year. All that liveth declineth fast, Therefore I will in all haste Have a reckoning of every man’s person; For, if I leave the people thus alone In their life and wicked tempests, Verily they will become much worse than beasts; For now one would by envy another eat up; Charity they do all clean forget. I hoped well that every man In My glory should make his mansion, And thereto I had them all elect; But now I see, like traitors deject, They thank Me not for the pleasure that I to them meant, Nor yet for their being that I them have lent; I proffered the people great multitude of mercy. And few there be that ask it heartily; They be so cumbered with worldly riches, That needs on them I must do justice, On every man living without fear. Where art thou, Death, thou mighty messenger? DEATH enters. DEATH: Almighty God, I am here at Your will, Your commandment to fulfill.
(Calling out.) DEATH?! DEATH! REVEAL YOURSELF! Death emerges from the audience. DEATH: Over here. “GOD”: OH. HELLO. DEATH: Hey. How are you? “GOD”: TO BE HONEST, I’M NOT IN THE BEST MOOD. DEATH: Oh no, is there something I can do?
Allusions A literary allusion is a reference to a person, event, thing, or other text within a literary work. Pick one allusion that appears in EVERYBODY from the list below and research it using the link provided, as well as other reliable sources of your choice. Then, examine how (and why) playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins draws on that specific source material to create a significant moment in the play. Allusion Learn More Image The Bible The Book of Matthew STUFF: “And it already sort of sounds like obsessing over me and chasing me down and having more of me might be what’s distracted you from focusing on this presentation or whatever in the first place.” (pages 37-38) Biblia.com: https://biblia.com/bible/nkjv/matthew/ /19- 21 The Book of Matthew (The New Testament) Source: theologyofwork.org Greek Mythology Sisyphus “I don’t have time for this. I’ve already spent my entire life dealing with this crap. I refuse to spend the last moments of it pushing the same rock up the same hill.” (page 40) Britannica.com: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sisyph us Sisyphus Titian, 1548– 49 Source: brittanica.com Danse Macabre (dance of death) XIII. LA DANSE MACABRE Skeletons dance macabre in a landscape of pure light and sound (page 46) Brittanica.com: https://www.britannica.com/art/dance- of-death-art-motif The Chandler Hans Holbein the Younger, 1526 Source: brittanica.com DEATH. (Waxing poetic.) “And now out of thy sight I see so make thee ready shortly for here’s the day from which they say that no one living gets away!” (page
Britannica.com: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Every man-English-morality-play Source Text: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19481/ 19481 - h/19481-h.htm
Allusions (continued) Everyman, a Morality Play “Ye hearer, take it of worth, old and young: All things upon this Earth are but Vanity—Beauty, Strength, Mind, Senses, do man forsake, just as his foolish friends and kinsmen who to him fair spake: All fleeth save his Love, which beyond he doth take.” (page 54) Britannica.com: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Everyman- English-morality-play Source Text: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19481/19481- h/19481-h.htm Source: target.com Economics Capitalism “Well, basically, I’ve been summoned to go on this scary journey at the end of which I have to give a presentation on my life to someone or something which I’m pretty sure now is definitely “God” and, anyway, I’m super scared and over the years you have been such a comfort to me and all the pieces of you are basically all the pieces of my life here and, at the very least, due to Capitalism, my labor has been literally translated into the abstract value with which I purchased you, so in some ways you are actually the sum total of how I spent a lot of my time on this planet…” (page 37) Britannica.com: https://www.britannica.com/topic/capitalism New York Stock Exchange Source: brittanica.com
Pre-Show Discussion Questions & Journal Prompt Discussion Questions:
Post-Show Discussion Questions and Journal Prompt Discussion Questions
