“Life lifes all around us,” director J.L. writes in his note prefacing the University of Georgia’s production of Branden Jacob-Jenkins’ contemporary morality play Everybody, which claims to “thematize the randomness of death” (Jacob-Jenkins 19) through a lottery that determines the actors’ roles for each performance. The script concludes by asking the audience to consider both the finality of death and the impact made on others; however, while Everybody is certainly a pensive work of theatre, it doesn’t necessarily achieve the inspiration or compassion it promises. 

Despite most of the actors being involved in the casting lottery, most of the roles did feel concrete in terms of their characterization. Each actor, aside from the titular role, played up a stereotypical characterization that was informed by their impact on “Everybody” (that is to say, humanity): Friendship was passionate yet mercurial, Kinship and Cousin both somewhat removed yet authentic, and Stuff enchanting yet destructive. Not to mention the static characters—including God, Death, and Love—who each felt uncharacteristically human in their own ways. In a pleasant surprise, each character was able to be totally distinct from another, despite the actors themselves (usually) not being tied to a specific character at any time. 

Yet, the show feels brutal at times. This existentialism is certainly intended—Everybody follows humanity traversing into death, after all. The design is otherworldly, or perhaps apocalyptic; the costumes, although beautiful, leaned towards an alien sort-of uniform. In tandem with the set design—a dark and mysterious limbo—the element of life itself felt lacking. The characters were humanized in their flaws, but lacked the authentic love equally central to the human experience that Everybody emphasizes time and time again. With Everybody lashing out continuously towards others, it felt difficult to truly see the good we were meant to be searching for. Even the relationship between Love and Everybody was underdeveloped, muddled by what felt like an out-of-place dance macabre that replaced an opportunity for genuine connection.

But Everybody was not without heart, thanks to Olivia Vicos (Usher/God/Understanding). Though we as the audience witnessed Everybody—watched them cry, rage, and laugh—Vicos cried, raged, and laughed along with us bearing a humor, charm, and vulnerability that best echoed the kindness and vitality promised by Jacob-Jenkins. In those few moments in the Usher’s imaginary field of flowers, or in recalling the theater itself, Everybody found its presence. 

As a piece of philosophical theatre, Everybody is an exuberant recapitulation of the many eternal, universal questions humanity has asked itself—and is still asking itself. It certainly emphasizes the weird, the uncomfortable, and the ugliness certainly inherent to the human experience. But still, Everybody never delivers on the empathy it outright tells us to expect. Everybody may not leave you feeling hopeful, but it will unequivocally leave you feeling something. That is to say, Everybody is certainly a worthwhile experience, as long as the audience can infer that perhaps they won’t receive the easy answers they felt owed. In a way, Everybody reflects the expectations of life and death through its intricacy; rather, life is left to “life,” as Reed would put it.