Everyman

by Carol Ann Duffy

Everyman is successful, popular and riding high when Death comes calling. Forced to abandon the life he has built, he embarks on a last, frantic search to recruit a friend, anyone, to speak in his defence. But Death is close behind, and time is running out.One of the great primal, spiritual myths, Everyman asks whether it is only in death that we can understand our lives. A cornerstone of English drama since the 15th century, this new adaptation by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy was presented at the National Theatre, London, in April 2015.

Genres: Plays, Read For School, Drama, Retellings, Poetry, Theatre, Fiction

93 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 7, 2015

About the author

Dame Carol Ann Duffy, DBE, FRSL is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Britain's Poet Laureate in May 2009.

She is the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly LGBT person to hold this position.

Her collections include Standing Female Nude (1985), winner of a Scottish Arts Council Award; Selling Manhattan (1987), which won a Somerset Maugham Award; Mean Time (1993), which won the Whitbread Poetry Award; and Rapture (2005), winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize.

Her poems address issues such as oppression, gender, and violence, in an accessible language that has made them popular in schools.

Reviews

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

This secular Everyman collapses into moralistic satire. Still, Duffy targets consumerism, makes decent jokes, and writes pleasing verse.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw this play when it was at the NT and found this updated version very powerful-- however, I have always found it to be powerful, no matter the version. Now I am teaching it and chose this adaptation. Looking forward to interesting class discussions!

[büşra]

“twenty-six hours in labour just to give birth to a lesbian! what can you cook for a vegan?”

“i made you happy once – you can tell god that.”
“i tell god you were good in bed?”

this was so damn funny. i can’t wait to discuss it in class

[George Bozhidarov · Rating 5 out of 5]

SPOILER ALERT

I managed to watch Rufus Norris' exceptional staging of "Everyman" at the National Theatre's streaming service with Chiwetel Ejiofor playing the main role. However, even with such a star-studded cast, the language of the play stood out. That is when I found about Carol Ann Duffy!

The author did everything right in modernising the medieval English moralist play. Its setting is thus a rooftop, where the 40-year old hedonistic financier is celebrating his birthday. High on coke, and heavy alcohol, he falls off the roof and dies. That is when his journey to God takes place.

All throughout, the dialogues and monologues are skillfully written. The language is sober, brisk, efficient. This takes nothing away from its emotion - it's just as capable of expressing Everyman's anger, confusion, hybris and acceptance of death. Although the play takes its roots from the moralist Christian literary tradition, much like Hugo von Hofmannsthal's rendition - Everyman is portrayed in a balanced way and carefully nuanced. Lastly, the author sprinkles the play with a good deal of humour, especially with the character of Death.

[Steve Mayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprisingly witty play about mortality and morality. Occasionally veers into liberal piety.

[Can · Rating 2 out of 5]

uhmmmmmmmmmmmm okay

[allison riera :) · Rating 1 out of 5]

why.

[Romany Arrowsmith · Rating 5 out of 5]

National Theater Live subscription 8: This was so directly in my wheelhouse it is the whole damn wheelhouse. Didn't care for Carol Ann Duffy prior to the play, had to study so much of her poetry in school, but what a clever and unique adaptation. To take a 15th century morality play and adapt it to a largely secular, wealthy, and liberal modern audience without alienating them, but without taking god out of it? That is some feat. And it's funny!

Idk how religious people might have taken this play - there's a lot of swearing in it, some casually heretical heterodox notions - but it's not really for them, it's for people who don't live by any code (neither one that is intrinsically generated nor one that is extrinsically received).

I was very moved. I sense this probably falls in the Noah/Cloud Atlas/The Green Knight/Avatar uncanny valley of being too sincere for the secular and too mystical for the religious, but that's my jam.

[duru · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I hurt and hurt
and Time's a haemorrhage."

"Who are you?
The creator... of the mosquito?
One child dead every thirty seconds
from an insect bite?
Bravo for that, you sick fuck!
If you do exist, you're a wanker."

"God/Good Deeds:
What does it mean to you
to be a human being?
Tell me that.
I'd like to hear it.
I need to hear it.

Everyman:
I don't know. Help me.

God/Good Deeds:
'Help me, help me!'"


"Aged forty. I got wrecked at my birthday party
and I fell off the roof.

There is more.
There is more in me.
The blossom on that tree."


"I think I have a soul.
In all humility, I think
I have a soul."


"God, if you are everywhere,
you were too difficult to comprehend
for one, weak, human man."

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

it felt like it was written with tiktok language but i guess this modern way of talking thing was the purpose there. i also liked the differences from the modern morality play. the more communal and selfless ideology instead of the religious self-salvation focus is appreciated but i didnt think it was a ground-breaking text. it is a bit too simple and that's not a bad thing but with this text, it wasnt satisfactory.

[Red · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great play that reintroduces in a new and also old way Hoffmanthal's Jedermann. The basis is reminiscent of Jedermann but it is a new confrontation with death and the impossibility to bargain with death. Moreover, it is linked to capitalism and other criticism concerning contemporary society. Refreshing new production of Jedermann res. Everyman. Must-read.

[Shana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really well written. Your own opinions are really allowed to come out no ideas are forced down your throat. Some of the lines are amazing comical and make you think perfect mix of both. The updated version from Carol Ann Duffy explores climate change and other modern ideas in this old story brilliant.

[Stacey Warner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fresh retelling of the morality play that is consistent with Duffy's style

[Zehra · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was okay, i found the rewritten play funnier than i expected, but still there were some parts i quietly didn't find as much funny

[genny · Rating 4 out of 5]

reallyyyy funny and meaningful when we compare it with the original everyman

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is the kind of play i want to see live, quite interesting to read. i enjoyed it

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Snappy, fiery, slightly dated (in the specifics) but very chic xx

[addie beck · Rating 4 out of 5]

this adaptation was much more enjoyable that the original! still dealt with the same dense topics but in a more graspable way.

[Matyldzia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Shoutout to UU Literary Studies because no matter how absurdly boring some of the assigned readings were, they would never put a tiktok language book on the syllabus

[Jay Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an odd one for sure. A quick read that I'm interested to discuss in class, and see the recording of. Will update with more thoughts after class discussion.

[Mark Friend · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beyond the moralistic and/ or religious connotations of the Everyman tradition, I was particularly interested in the archetypal and symbolic conventions of character and the use of this theatrical style in storytelling.

This is what drew me to this play, and on that point it delivered. It was particularly useful to read this style of poetic fable set in a contemporary context, i’d be keen to read more plays utilising this style.

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like the medieval English morality play Everyman, and I really like the work of Carol Ann Duffy, so this is an exciting version for me. It's a particularly interesting adaptation, because it's not easy to modernize an allegory. People today simply don't do allegory. It's not a genre that modern authors write or that many modern people read, unless we're specifically seeking out something like medieval literature. So, that makes it challenging to adapt a play that's straight-up allegory and make it meaningful for modern theatre audiences. One strategy Duffy uses for this is by making most of the allegorical work something that happens in Everyman's head as he's plummeting off a balcony to his death. So, rather than seeing Everyman literally going around and asking for the help of Fellowship, Kindred, Worldly Good, etc., we see a kind of life-flashing-before-his-eyes scenario, but in which his brain imagines the events of the original play.

Another thing Duffy does is tones down the Catholic elements of the original play. Originally, Knowledge took Everyman to confession and penance/self-flagellation in order to repent his sins and show contrition before God, but here that is completely cut out. Instead of basically coming back to the teachings of the Church, Everyone instead comes to a kind of philosophical acceptance of his morality and the transitory nature of life. It's not deeply theological, more like "spiritual." But likely more effective for contemporary theatre audiences, who are less likely to be medieval Catholics than audiences for the original Everyman were.
https://youtu.be/W7hLhHqznnc

[Veru · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would love to see this on stage! I also think it would be super interesting to read the original and then compare... maybe a project for a later point, when I have more time.

I really enjoyed the speech by Everyman towards the end, during which he muses about his life, including the good and bad things. I would love to write something similar to it about my life at some point. Yet another project inspired by this play, which I will get back to when I have more time (and life experience?).

[Belen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt that the dialogues were too short and the whole reading was kind of quick with too many things being said at the same time. Overwhelming.