At the end of August, DSF’s Digital Internship Program will present an Online Theatre Festival featuring three exciting projects. One project is Everybody by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, which is based on the morality play “Everyman” – here is a post introducing the text:
What does a person need in life? Answers vary person to person. Some may say physical nourishment like food and shelter while others consider a psychological approach and choose love and affection. Regardless, people find commonalities amongst their answers. Human beings will say they need fellowship and strength and their wits. But, on our final days on this earth, do any of our answers make a difference?
That is the question of Everyman. Written by an anonymous collection of medieval authors, this play chronicles the final day of judgement for Everyman, a person who is simultaneously everyone and no one. On their last journey of life Everyman seeks a companion. Our answers to this eternal question–Knowledge, Strength, Wits, Good Deeds, Confession, Fellowship, Beauty, Discretion–are concepts personified. But, of all the characters Everybody hopes will enrich their life, only one remains.
Scholars consider Everyman a morality play because it challenges its audience to consider their own righteousness like Everyman. The story is designed to educate medieval patrons on their Christian values. However, in an increasingly secular society with freedom of religious practice, the moral judgement of the divine does not hold the same profound awe and fear for Everyman. Nevertheless, the character of an individual (and a society) must always be questioned in order to improve ourselves. If people need their morality, how do they define it?
If you find this question eerily familiar, it is because it is the same question people are asking on the news, social media, and amongst each other. People are reckoning with their own actions and the actions of their society at large. How can people let others die when wearing a mask takes little to no effort and how can our government allow the same? How has racism manifested itself within our governmental and social systems and how does the individual perpetuate it? These questions require nourishment in order to be answered. What are your morals–and how will they stick with you until the end?
by Rebecca Galkin
DSF Digital Internship Program Participant