Everybody

Spoiler alert: No one gets out of here alive. Everybody dies.

If you had ninety minutes to find someone to accompany you in death, could you do it? Who would be your true companion? Or must we all die alone? These are the eternal questions, and the quest, that Everybody faces in this timeless, hilarious, and though-provoking production of Everybody by Couch Penny Ensemble.

Everybody by playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, is a modern telling of a tale older than the much-studied 15^th century Everyman you might recognize in its themes. Under the direction of Greta Mae Geiser, the ensemble creates an unforgettable experience of laughter, loss, and the universal search for the meaning of life.

A modern morality play, Everybody is a descendent, if you would, of Everyman and of ancestral stories far older still that grappled with these quintessentially human questions. Everybody garnered a Pulitzer Prize nomination after premiering in 2017. Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins has written multiple lauded works including Purpose, 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Dama and 2025 Tony, Appropriate, 2023 Tony, and a Pulitzer nomination for Gloria.

Couch Penny Ensemble “believe(s) that confronting one’s own demons can be a catharsis; and through this exploration we hope to shine light on the darker common threads of the shared human experience.” Everybody is funny, compelling dreamscape that makes magic of the darkest moment we will all share – the contemplation of our own mortality.

When our adventure begins God is (understandably) displeased with how the humans have been treating Their creation. Death is summoned and charged with gathering some random(ish) humans from the audience to answer. Panic sets in when these unlucky few understand they must give a presentation to “God” to justify their lives. A greatly put-upon Death grants them a brief reprieve to find help for the journey – and the dreaded presentation. The story follows the character Everybody in their desperate, hilarious, and heart-opening search for a companion in death, that turns into a quest for the ultimate answer – the purpose of life itself.

And the twist: five of the company members are randomly assigned roles every night. They must be ready and able to fill any set of characters – including the role of our hero, Everybody. The terminally perky Usher gives us introductory and intermittent narrative structure – including the warning that ‘some people in this play are not playing people.’ These challenging and hysterical characters are anthropomorphized entities: Friendship, Cousin, Kinship and Stuff, to name a few.

At the opening, fabric panels hang from the flies, with memento mori designs evocative of cathedral windows and Galileo’s sketches. The major theme of loss, of mundane things falling away, is physically manifested in the gradual removal of the panels – leaving empty bars behind – transforming the minimal set dressing to an almost completely bare stage.

Each panel is put to clever use as a unique costume piece (Costume Design by Annabella Mumma) for the archetypal beings Everybody touches. Mumma’s designs for the Somebodies of the show are, by necessity, generally simple evocative pieces that convey the being’s essence and that each Somebody can wear. With the exception of Stuff. The elaborate, overflowing mass that is Stuff’s dress mesmerizes; almost forcing viewers to dive into the visual details. The open hoop skirt structure serves to both showcase the accumulation of stuff, while embodying the emptiness underneath. Topped with a tiara and a vanity mirror in constant use, Mumma’s Stuff costume is fulfillment of the character’s essence and purpose.

The play’s structure is quite unusual. A fascinating layering of experience and varied presentation, it goes far beyond merely breaking through the concept of a fourth wall. Without giving too much away – there are characters that fulfill a functional role of connecting the audience to the proceeding, but later break through even the ensemble’s bubble, a deliberate reminder that these are actors, highlighting the surreality of the entirety.

Scenes shift magickly from a moment of narration into living the experiences that Everybody believes to be a series of dreams. This design is wonderfully disorienting, forcing the audience to ride the changes as Everybody does, drifting uncontrollably in and out of ‘consciousness.’ The almost bare stage transports us from dream, to a sort of present, to bursts of existential crisis with the compelling force of lighting by Jackson Mikkelsen (Lighting Designer). The phantasmagorical is brought to fantastic heights with the Sound Design of Bryce Lederer (Couch Penny Ensemble Artistic Director). Together the light and sound spin surreal worlds where the scenes emerge like fleeting visions in a cloudy crystal ball.

While every performance will differ, the ensemble members are balanced and seem up to the momentous task of being ready for any role. During the scene where they are facing (and haranguing) Death, they are all electric. Of particular note was Ellie Duffey’s performance as Friendship, Caitlin Frazier’s role as Cousin, and of course Renzo Vicente’s Everybody. Friendship’s scene with Everybody was a masterful exercise in comedic timing, with every laugh building on the last. Cousin’s farewell moment to Everybody wove levity through a deeply moving contemplation of what an all powerful God might want from our mortal lives – with a painfully beautiful subtext of how unfair that all is.

Renzo Vicente convincingly lives the full gambit of emotions Everybody goes through on their quest. From fearful desperation, through frustration and anger, Everybody traverses responses akin to the stages of grief, woven with laughter. Vicente carried the audience with him on this journey. In the scene where Everybody fights with and follows Love, Vicente’s process of epiphany into surrender is powerful.

An exquisite scene plays out as Everybody is pulled towards the grave by Death. One by one the mundane facets of life fall away. In the spirit of modern storytelling Everybody is left with one, hard-won but true companion – and in the spirit of an ancient morality play a last-minute character of consequences jumps in.

On the tail of a pinnacle moment the futzing with a guitar case disturbs and thus dilutes the power of Everybody’s transition. Characters sitting on the floor is a natural and effective staging, but they can only be seen fully when sitting at a minimum several feet back from the front.

Couch Penny Ensemble “aims to explore the eccentricities of the human experience, face our shadows, and emerge from the theatre with a renewed sense of connection, understanding, and appreciation for stories that bind us all.” Everybody is an excellent vehicle for accomplishing this goal.

Recommended.

Reviewed by Soleil Rodrigue

Everybody by Couch Penny Ensemble runs a quick 90 minutes, December 12 -21, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m, with matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2:30 2:30 p.m. All shows at the Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago.

Tickets are $24 and may be purchased online through couchpennyensemble.com

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com