![]() Beginning scattered surreptitiously among the unsuspecting audience, they are picked out and called onstage, the contrivance being they have been chosen at random as though they are attending a David Copperfield performance in Vegas. The five remaining actors, Lisa Sanaye Dring, Nicole Erb, Harry Groener, Antonio Jaramillo, and Gerald Joseph, are listed in the program only as playing “Somebody.” That’s because until each performance begins, the actors have no idea who they are playing. Then again, is this really God? Is God even real? “Doesn’t that depend on your definition of real?” Jacob-Jenkins asks. ![]() In those roles, Dawn Didiwick, Cherish Monique Duke, and Alberto Isaac, respectively, are all perfect.ĭuke also has the responsibility of showing the audience to their seats as they enter, then gives a curtain speech that goes way beyond a reminder to turn off cellphones and pointing out exits, morphing directly into the play itself as our friendly usher does double duty as a decidedly ultra-cool Moms Mably-like God. I have been juggling so many choices for that honor as my annual TicketHolder Awards build to conclusion for 2022, but that Antaeus and their production of Everybody has instantly made my decision for me-bar any eleventh-hour upsets-is purdy much a given.Īlong with the actor cast as Death (the role now being played by the equally formidable Tony Amendola with Byrd off to Toronto cast as Bob Odenkirk’s mother in a new TV series), three others appear in traditional assigned roles, if you can call characters named Time, Understanding, and Love traditional. “Is this real or is this a dream?” a character asks, to which Death responds with an understood duh: “No, it’s theatre.”Īs things slowly, painfully return to normal for stage companies everywhere after our globally debilitating pandemic, this has been the Year of the Ensemble Cast in LA. It’s an unsettling reminder of how precious life is and how urgently important it is to appreciate every moment of it, but it’s also so chockfull of clever absurdities and quirky inventiveness that it can also be bearable-if one hasn’t lost a sense of humor about the subject by age (almost) 76.Īntaeus is known for presenting more traditional classics, but in the hands of this exceptional veteran ensemble cast under the leadership of director Jennifer Chang, Jacob-Jenkins’ fascinating but challenging Everybody could not possibly be a tighter fit. There’s now no doubt whatsoever in my mind that Jacobs-Jenkins is a major artist to watch, someone who, as the New York Times referred to him, has become “one of our country’s most original and illuminating writers.”īased on the classic medieval morality play Everyman, this is an imaginative new take on the famous allegorical quest as a simple man searches for the explanation of life and its transience, or the “Buddhist-ness at the heart of the story.”Įverybody lobbies for a willing companion to join him on his journey to meet his demise at the wave of a riding crop from Death (played by formidable LA theatrical icon Anne Gee Byrd), something that could not be more timely for me personally at the moment. After seeing Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ wildly inventive and refreshingly entertaining morality tale The Octoroon debut at the Fountain last season, the announcement that the prolific Antaeus Theatre Company would be presenting the LA premiere of the playwright’s 2018 Pulitzer finalist Everybody gave me yet another reason to not so patiently await Fall.
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