Everybody NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (176)
See it if Medieval morality play redone as a 4th-wall breaking comedy. Questions about how death gives meaning to life are presented brightly.
Don't see it if You would not enjoy characters that represent abstract ideas. You want something deeper. This is a light fun time.
See it if you follow the playwright, curious how the morality play "Everyman" is adapted for modern audiences, seeing actors switch roles each night
Don't see it if you expect a lot of meat in your story, have forgotten a lot about "Everyman," not interested in archetype characters,
See it if you want to see a new version re:" the meaning of life" There are some nice lighting effects and set design.
Don't see it if if you wish to avoid a dark, dark play fear of death fear of the unknown etc. Note; playbills distributed after the performance
See it if you think you've seen it all. You've likely never seen a show quite like this. The method of storytelling is fresh and not formulaic.
Don't see it if you don't like to be preached to (heavy moral here about how to live life) or have a bad neck (the action happens all around you). Read more
See it if you want to see a Playwriting 101 project (that should have received an "F") given a full-blown production.
Don't see it if you have admired some of Jacobs-Jenkins past work like "An Octoroon," or "Gloria." Read more
See it if You enjoy being comically entertained during the show and are willing to think a bit afterward
Don't see it if You want to walk out of show and think you've "seen" everything the show offers without additional thought required. Read more
See it if you want to see the latest effort of one of our most talented young playwrights and if you like gimmicks, e.g. random assignment of roles.
Don't see it if you don't like symbolic characters, meta-theatrical devices and crave something that appeals more to the emotions than the intellect. Read more
See it if you want to experience the work of playwright Jenkins. He's a genius and should be heard though not his best play.
Don't see it if you are looking for a conventional play. This is not for you.
Critic Reviews (37)
"Much painstaking rehearsal and synchronization of cues, for the tech crew as well as the performers, has gone into 'Everybody.' Yet it still feels like a work in progress, waiting to be sharpened into focus...Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins has made a virtue of his anxieties about identity in meta-theatrical plays that turn traditional forms inside out. Here, though, such self-consciousness curdles, despite some amusing 'who’s on first'-style circular dialogue on weighty subjects."
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"Apart from the cast’s charm and visual coups engineered by director Lila Neugebauer, the 100-minute experiment feels overlong and talky...Lord knows we don’t need a 'faithful' revival of this theatrical fossil, but I’m not sure this slangy, digressive gloss adds much substance. Stranded between cosmic earnestness and a collegiate urge to interrogate weird old texts, 'Everybody' has trouble holding onto a fixed identity."
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“A terrific production…The play is trenchant, certainly, and often quite moving…By the end, despite Jacobs-Jenkins’s tricks and Neugebauer’s staging savvy ‘Everybody’ offers only its destabilization, and a decidedly weak-tea moral…That’s the problem with genre writing: Most of what can be said meaningfully in a form has already been said by those who needed to invent it. It’s not so much that Jacobs-Jenkins has crashed the party, fun as it may be; it’s that he’s arrived too late.”
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"Despite clever moments, 'Everybody' proves a trial to sit through...For all its artistic ambitions, 'Everybody' turns out to be confusing and disjointed, filled with stylistic diversions that more often than not prove underwhelming...The revolving casting feels like a gimmick and has some unfortunate results...Ultimately, 'Everybody' fails in its goal to make its themes universal and its centuries-old inspiration feel contemporary."
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"Something is inevitably lost in adapting the material for a modern audience that has outgrown its fear and awe of hellfire and damnation. But the story retains some power on a human level...Except for a dramatic appearance by two giant skeletons working the side aisles of the house, no serious attempt has been made to adapt medieval theatrical conventions for modern times — although God herself knows that we mortals are just as selfish and greedy as our medieval ancestors."
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"This gifted and uncategorizable playwright’s spin on 'Everyman.' And spin it is, with the 10 actors being assigned roles according to a lottery near the beginning of each performance. They are great company. The show, on the other hand, is sophomoric nonsense and quickly wears out its welcome. My own mind wandered to Salzburg, where a new interpretation of the 15th-century fable is performed each summer under the hot hot Austrian sun."
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"Five actors, of various race and gender, rotate in the part that is assigned in a pre-performance lottery. It’s an interesting gambit, though more so for the cast than theatergoers...Goofy glow-in-the-dark 'Jason and the Argonauts'-style skeletons energize the talky, sometimes trying show."
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"At turns ambitious, witty, and a bit dull...Solid performances still don't fully rescue the play from its didactic origins. Dress a medieval morality play up in 21st-century slang and it comes off sounding like a skit for incoming college freshman performed by the resident assistants of purgatory...Nothing in director Lila Neugebauer's high-design production quite rises to the tone set in those austere first 10 minutes, but it is often very impressive."
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