Everybody

The full title of Scene 1 is: “Here Beginneth a Treatise on How Someone or Something—God?—Sendeth Death to Summon Every Creature to Come and Account for Their Lives in the World, presented in the Manner of a Morality Play” (7).

An Usher leads the audience in a brief clapping ritual, and then gives a folksy speech to remind the audience to turn off their cell phones, unwrap candies, and not make noise during the performance. The Usher explains that the play is based on the 15th century morality play Everyman. Scholars originally believed that a group of English monks wrote Everyman communally, but it was most likely adapted from a Dutch play of unknown authorship that itself was based on a Buddhist fable.

The Usher tells the audience that the play is old and wise, and therefore the audience should trust it. Even if it has “storytelling quirks” (9), such as some of the characters not being people, Everyman is about “Life and its transience, which is to say it was really, I guess, about Death” (9). The Catholic version is a morality play because it teaches audiences how to live their lives to avoid Hell.