St Anne’s Diocesan College by arrangement with DALRO (Pty)
Limited presents Everybody by Branden
Jacobs-Jenkins.
What does it mean to live well? What do we carry with us when everything else falls away? And if Death called on you today, would you be ready?
These timeless questions lie at the heart of Everybody, the acclaimed play by contemporary American playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Inspired by the medieval morality play Everyman, Everybody transforms a 16th-century allegory into a striking, urgent, and unexpectedly humorous theatrical experience for modern audiences.
The original Everyman told the story of a character summoned by Death and forced to account for their life. In a powerful theatrical twist, Jacobs-Jenkins reinvents this journey for our own era. In a fast-paced, hyperconnected, globalised world driven by productivity, consumerism, and digital identity, this play asks us to pause. It challenges us to consider what has lasting value beyond status, possessions, and social media personas. In a time marked by global uncertainty, climate anxiety, political division, war and widening inequality, Everybody gently but firmly asks: What endures? Who stands beside us when everything else is stripped away?
The 16th-century message of Everyman remains startlingly relevant today. The original morality play urged audiences to reflect on their lives before it was too late which is an invitation that feels even more urgent in our 21st-century global world, where distraction is constant and reflection is rare. Everybody reminds us that wealth, beauty, friendship, and even knowledge may falter, but our actions and choices prevail. The genius of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ adaptation lies in its seamless fusion of the ancient and the contemporary: while rooted in the structure and spiritual inquiry of the medieval Everyman, Everybody speaks in a modern voice that is ironic, self-aware, and deeply human; both philosophical and accessible, playful and profound.
Everybody is not a sombre meditation on death; it is a vibrant, surprising exploration of what it means to live. It invites laughter, recognition, and ultimately, introspection. It is theatre that does what theatre has always done at its best: hold a mirror to humanity and ask us who we are.
Everybody is directed by Lynn Chemaly with technical direction by Tebogo Makitla.
Performances:
March 18, 19, 23, 24 at 19h00
March 20 at 14h30
The St Anne’s Theatre, Hilton, KZN.
Booking on the QR code. Tickets R70.
Enquiries on 033-343 6100 or lchemaly@stannes.co.za
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