CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — Last year when UPEI theatre professor Greg Doran was poring over plays to mount with Vagabond Productions one, in particular, caught his attention.
Called Everyman, it was penned by an anonymous author.
Flipping through the pages of the manuscript, he fell in love with the medieval morality play which has, as its theme, what human beings need to do to be good people.
How could this play, written over 500 years ago, speak to a 21st century audience, he wondered.
Very easily, he discovered.
Because it turns out that the theme was timeless.
As the show’s director, he simply adapted the play into a more contemporary one and called it Everyone.
“With this modern adaption, Greg has captured the true meaning of morality through a 21st-century lens,” says cast member Hanna Barton.
“It’s something everyone can relate to,” says Charlotte Roberson, who plays Everyone.
The premise of the play is that the good and evil deeds of one’s life will be tallied up by the Lord after death. The play is the allegorical accounting of Everyone, who represents all humankind.
“Everyone goes on a journey, and the Lord says, ‘you’ve got to get your ledger together. So, they go to various people to get their ledger in order,” says Doran, whose first step in adapting the play was to neutralize gender.
He took out gender specific pronouns like he and she and replaced them with they, them and their.
“I wanted to turn the play into something more inclusive, something more contemporary.”
As he pored over the play, he looked for parallels he could use to update the play, including using contemporary terms for similar ideas.
Riches became wealth and fellowship translated seamlessly to Facebook.
”In the contemporary world, the idea of interpersonal fellowship has fallen by the wayside, a little bit, as people go to their social media.”
In the original play, the protagonist visits his kindred.
“Instead, I created the fam, the constructed family, something they’ve created for themselves, as opposed to a biological family.”
Doran also made the play more inclusive by altering the Christian elements in favour of more spiritual elements.
“Instead of using specific God references, we used Creator, as a catch term that many different organizations might use. I also looked for terms that might broaden out the idea of spirituality to be more open ended.”
Doran’s motivation for revising the play was to create a 21st morality play that people might be inspired by.
“We’ve lost sight of the moral of this play, which is doing good deeds.”
And although people and society have changed, since the play was written over 500 years ago, the message of the play has remained the same.
“It’s about being a good person and what it means to be a good person in your society.”
If you are going
- What: Everyone (adaptation of Everyman)
- When and where: March 17-21 in the UPEI Faculty Lounge, room 201, SDU Main Building, 7:30 p.m. The doors open at 7 p.m.
- Admission: Pay as you can. For more information, email Greg Doran at [email protected] or call him at 902-566-6013.
