Nicholas Barnard TH367: Everyman Concept Paper 12/2/02
What will happen when I die? What if anything will come with me after I die? Which people around me will follow me to the end of my life and wait with me at my bedside while I die? These questions are universal to dying within any society, faith, or socioeconomic status.
The allegorical play Everyman by an anonymous medieval author is, with the exception of the period specific language, extremely universal and not limited to any specific situation or locale. So the central idea that author wishes to convey is similarly universal that every person will die, and while we have many pieces of our life that we currently carry with us, our good deeds are all that will be recognized in the afterlife.
Artistically at a production level Everyman is extremely flexible, as a general direction the religious aspects of the piece should be toned down, as to focus the audience more on the moral decisions and considerations that Everyman is making. Fundamentally the goal of producing Everyman is setting the character up so that the audience can empathize with, identify with, and mentally exchange places with Everyman.
We currently live in a world of great divisions, although these divisions have shrunk and become much less significant in the past years, in the western world religiously our culture is still extremely segregated, to the point that an integrated church is hard to find within this country. Artistically I wish to show, within the same production, that we all are alike when we die, and all have very similar values in regards to death.
Stylistically Everyman should be produced with a minimal stage, and very simplistic costumes, reinforcing the allegorical nature of the characters. It is also very important to consider what the “Everyman” character should be played as and who should be cast in the role.
In trying to decided upon an actor that is significantly representative of all of us it is very easy to realize that this is a futile task, we are all significantly different enough from one and other that there is no blank slate that we are all constructed from, and no universalness to whom we are as people. Therefore, to achieve the necessary univeralness the character of Everyman should be played by multiple different actors, who throughout the course of the production just exchange places and continue with the character. The audience can follow this by having a costume that is very specifically noticeable, and the same over all the different Everyman actors. These multiple different actors should be played by a diverse cast representing as well as possible the community in which the play is produced.
This rotating actor concept also introduces the possibility of showing everyman lose the specific traits. For instance, when Everyman loses strength a significantly weaker actor can be substituted as to reinforce this change within the physical character of Everyman as well as the actual loss of the Strength character.