Everybody

At the end of the play, the Usher asks, “Why is it these plays about death only ever wind up trying to tell us about life? I guess it’s because no one’s ever really figured out what happens when we die, huh?” (54). The play is about the mysteries of life and death, but more pointedly, it’s about humanity’s anxieties about the inability to know the mysteries of life and death. As Everybody journeys into death, they receive little clarity, losing their senses and the focus of their mind, leaving them more confused than they were at the start. Understanding, who guides Everybody’s faculties, has no grasp of the larger picture of life and death until they watch Everybody experience it.

The play asks: What is the purpose of life? In the original medieval morality play Everyman, the universe is far simpler and defined by religious thought. God and heaven exist, and Everyman can reach them by following the clear path set out by Catholic doctrine. The purpose of life is to do Good Deeds because nothing else stays with you when you die. By contrast, Everybody has more questions than answers, despite the fact that Jacobs-Jenkins has characters sarcastically point out message of different moments in the play.