Thursday’s production of Everybody, written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and directed by Visiting Assistant Professor of Drama Matthew Singletary, was literally a one-of-a-kind production. Each show, the four main members of the ensemble — Logan Furlonge ’27, Ethan Greenzang ’27, Beatrice Bunnell ’29 and Westley Kailus ’28 — switched their roles with the help of a (purportedly true) live lottery on stage at the Bolton Theater. The resulting Kenyon College Dance, Drama and Cinema Club play was funny and witty at times, but was marred by a slow-moving plot and some maddening directorial decisions that shifted the tone of the production from poignant to absurd, too quickly and too often. 

The play makes one thing very clear: Everybody is going to die. Quite literally. Everybody, the titular character, has been summoned by an exasperated Death (Georgia Morton ’29, clad in Carhartt and a baggy gray hoodie), to give God a presentation about their life. Everybody has until Death returns from another errand to frantically search for someone, anyone, to accompany them on their journey. 

Everybody certainly got off to a slow beginning. Tyler Frey ’29 delivered a long, fourth-wall-breaking monologue as the character Understanding. Her speech cheekily implored viewers to turn off their cell phones and unwrap cough drops, which made me feel more like an airplane passenger than an audience member. There were at least three separate moments when I finally settled into my seat, thinking, “At last, the show is starting,” only for another side note or fourth-wall break to delay the play, further confusing the audience. Multiple sections with long pre-recorded or pitch-black dialogue had viewers’ eyes glazing over; the lottery that assigned the cast their characters took place almost a third of the way through the 90-minute production.

Everybody was at its best when it centered the undeniable chemistry between its talented actors. In the Thursday and Saturday shows, Furlonge shone as Friendship, the clingy companion that pledges to accompany Everybody to “hell and back” yet flakes when Everybody asks them to actually fulfill their promise. “You seem a little depressed!” Friendship sympathizes. “Is it still the election? Is it the weather? Is it global warming? Is it the impending threat of nuclear war? Or is it just politics?” Jacob-Jenkins’ script pokes fun at the superficial and formulaic nature of 21st-century friendship to great success.

Equally hilarious were Greenzang and Kailus. In Thursday’s production, they embodied Everybody’s companions, the erratic, vape-smoking Cousin and the toxic and frosty Stuff, respectively. Indeed, it seemed like all four ensemble actors were so perfectly cast that it made one doubt the honesty of the show’s role lottery. 

When I returned for the Saturday night show and watched it with the roles mixed up — Greenzang as Everybody, Kailus as Cousin and Bunnell as Stuff — the cast’s impressive versatility made me rue missing Friday’s production to see the third combination. Bunnell (Thursday) and Greenzang each brought slightly different vibes to Everybody: Bunnell was desperate and frantic, whereas Greenzang was more fidgety and timid. Both did an excellent job. 

Then came the dance. The dance broke me. As Everybody lies on the ground, alone and scared, a troupe of skeletons deliver them to their grave. This is where I will break the fourth wall — there is simply no way I can describe how awfully hilarious, sudden and amateurish this dance was. As I looked around the theater to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating (I had to fact-check with my Collegian coworkers that the dance even really happened), I saw fellow audience members with their jaws wide open in disbelief or horror, eyes involuntarily twitching or heaving from fits of laughter. The original script for Everybody called for a “dance macabre in a landscape of pure light and sound.” Easier said than done.

The show ended much as it began, with a long monologue that spoonfed us the moral of the story. “Why is it these plays about death always only ever wind up trying to tell us about life?” Understanding contemplates. If you have to ask the audience at the end of a production, that isn’t a good sign. In its quest to be relatable, breaking the fourth wall over and over again, the play’s final moments were the very opposite of “show, don’t tell.”

If Everybody existed to be a good conversation-starter at breakfast the morning after, then it did a fantastic job. The acting was great, and anyone who went with their friends will surely vouch that it was, if nothing else, an entertaining experience. In the end, its stop-start pacing and overly ambitious plot did not propel Everybody into the pantheon of memorable Kenyon productions. But who cares, we’re all dying anyway!