This essay reconstructs early performances of the best known English morality play, Everyman, on the basis of evidence in the earliest surviving text, John Skot’s edition, dated 1528-1529, now in the Huntington Library.
Although Everyman is not typical of the surviving English morality plays, it it is sometimes included in tertiary courses of medieval studies and in generalised courses of English literature. Often it is a student’s only sampling of mediaeval or early Renaissance drama. The people who set courses are justified philosophically in their choice since, whatever aspects of culture Everyman does or doesn’t represent, it certainly tackles the deepest and most intractable of human experiences–aloneness and death. Its many modern productions confirm another truth–Everyman is pre-eminently a work that shines in performance. Accordingly, this lecture examines the dramatic excellence of Everyman from the differing perspectives of the director and actors and of the audience. Discussion focuses on the earliest performances, including auspices and sets.
English Staging 1400-1520
Evidence suggests that Everyman was translated from the Dutch play Elkerlijc in 1519 or a few years earlier (Cawley x-xii; Schoenbaum 2). Whether this is accepted, or whether the argument for the precedence of Everyman and an earlier dating between 1480 and 1510 is preferred, does not affect the likelihood that, when Everyman was written, play production in England was diversified. It is, however, possible to isolate two major staging conventions, as described by Glynne Wickham ( 229-53) and David Bevington (8-47, 68-87). Productions were divided between small professional travelling companies who performed on single playing areas, usually indoors, and larger companies made up mainly of amateurs or occasional players, who performed on detached or multiple stages, usually out of doors.
A. Small Professional Companies Performing on Single Sets
Between 1460 and 1520 the professional companies entertained both elite and popular audiences (Bevington 26-48). They included in their repertoires plays for all audiences, such as Mankind, The World and the Child, Youth, and Hyckescorner; humanist or scholarly plays suitable also for popular performance, such as Henry Medwall’s Nature, John Rastell’s The Nature of the Four Elements and John Heywood’s trilogy–The Four P’s, John John the Husband…, and Witty and Witless; and courtly plays with popular features, such as Medwall’s Fulgens and Lucres and John Skelton’s Magnificence. The repertoires of the professional companies are characterised above all by small casts–never more and six, and in one case, The World and the Child, by as few as two. Sometimes, as in Nature and Magnificence, economising in actors was achieved by extensive doubling. Although Wickham argues the opposite (235), Length of performance does not seem to have been a a primary feature distinguishing single-set productions (“interludes”) from those on multiple stages. Some interludes, such as Medwall’s, are quite long, while others are quite short. Most of the plays intended for the small troupes include robust or bawdy comic scenes, partly inspired by the professional players’ need to maintain audience numbers.
B. Amateur Productions and Multiple Staging
Of the plays suitable for performance on a number of separate stages, The Castle of Perseverance (1400-1425) is the best known. It was preceded by The Pride of Life (c. 1350) and followed, at the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century, by the multiple-stage plays of the Digby manuscript, The Killing of the Children, Mary Magdalene and The Conversion of Saint Paul. Productions using separate stages were more elaborate than those on single sets. Cast sizes were flexible and opportunities for doubling were not cultivated. Complicated staging and effects were usual. Mary Magdalene, for instance, required thirteen scaffolds, two of which went up in flames, and a ship that circumnavigated the playing area three times. The Conversion of Saint Paul has the following stage directions:
Here cometh a fervent with great tempest, and Saul falleth down off his horse; that done, Godhead speaketh in heaven. (line 182)
Here the Holy Spirit [in the form of a dove] appears above him. (line 291)
Comedy is less pervasive in detached-stage plays than in single-set productions. The Pride of Life, with no comic scenes or characters, is an early example. Of the two longest extant multiple-stage plays, there are few comic scenes in The Castle of Perseverance and only one in Mary Magdalene. Each of the shorter plays of the Digby manuscript–The Conversion of Saint Paul and The Killing of the Children–contains only one comic scene.
Beyond this, it is difficult to generalise about the staging in England of plays intended for multiple sets. Their elaborateness and large casts suggest that they had at their disposal the resources of the trade guilds in the provincial cities, and that their staging was a development from that of the mystery cycles (Bevington 233-34). On the other hand, at least two of the extant plays of this type–Perseverance and The Conversion of Saint Paul–were definitely intended for travelling companies. The identity of the actors who were prepared to tour such complex productions is an intriguing question.
Everyman–A Play for Detached Stages
Although Everyman is as anomalous among contemporary English plays in staging as in other respects, most of the comparative evidence suggests that its earliest productions were on detached stages. Dating the play as late as 1519 does not exclude this, since the three multiple-stage plays of the Digby manuscript could also be early sixteenth-century productions. Furthermore, a scene that was added to The Conversion of Saint Paul in a hand perhaps belonging to the reign of Queen Mary suggests that interest in multiple-stage productions persisted until quite late (Baker and Murphy 154-55, 162-63).
Cast Numbers and the Doubling of Roles
At line 668, when Everyman summons to his aid Discretion, Strength, Beauty and Five Wits, there are, with Good Deeds and Knowledge, seven characters on stage. In addition, at least one of the characters with a fixed position–God, Goods or Confession–would be unavailable for another role at this point. This gives a minimum cast of eight, two more than the maximum required in plays intended for the the professional troupes at this time. On the other hand, the fact that Everyman is so obviously adapted for the doubling of roles would, if there were no contrary evidence, tend to link it with the professional troupes. Doubling can begin very early, if, for instance, the actor playing Messenger also takes the part of Death, and then reappears as Kindred or Cousin, or even as Fellowship. However the division of lines among the cast is more equal if doubling begins nearer the centre.
With a cast of only eight, either Cousin or Kindred must be played by an actor who has already appeared in a different role, since Goods and Good Deeds are fixed on stage from the beginning. Thereafter all new parts, with the exceptions of Goods and Good Deeds, must be doubled, thus:
Roles Players Roles Players
Messenger 1 Knowledge 32
God 2 Confession 22
Death 3 Discretion 52
Everyman 4 Beauty 62
Fellowship 5 Strength 72
Cousin 6 Five Wits 13
Kindred 12 Angel 63
Goods 7 Doctor 73
Good Deeds 8
By this arrangement, Goods must exit after he has played his part, but the actor playing Confession is not obliged to reappear. Three players, 1, 6, and 7, have three roles each.
By adding two actors to the cast, an almost symmetrical division of work can be achieved. Better funded productions of the early sixteenth century probably followed the following plan:
Roles Players Roles Players
Messenger 1 Knowledge 10
God 2 Confession 22
Death 3 Discretion 12
Everyman 4 Beauty 62
Fellowship 5 Strength 32
Cousin 6 Five Wits 52
Kindred 7 Angel 72
Goods 8 Doctor 82
Good Deeds 9
Here, the actors of Everyman, Good Deeds and Knowledge, who are longest on stage, have only one part each, while the minor actors of the first half–for example, God, Fellowship, Kindred–are given ample time to prepare for a second minor role–perhaps as Confession, Five Wits or the Angel. An actor would have no difficulty in remembering his entrance and re-entrance, and from his point of view the orderly scheme for doubling in Everyman would have been preferable to the almost random appearances in different roles which must have occurred in some productions of the professional troupes.
Performance of Everyman by the small professional troupes on single stages seems unlikely also because the playwright did not exploit obvious ways of economising on actors. The peripheral parts of the Messenger, Angel and Doctor could presumably have been easily reduced or merged, but this has not occurred. Again, there is no evidence to link Everyman with any of the types of plays listed by Bevington as performed by the professional companies. Everyman is not obviously humanist or courtly. It is separated from the popular canon by its seriousness, which is yet another characteristic that it shares with plays of the multiple sets.
Three Distinct Locations
Internal evidence further supports the view that the playwright had performances on detached stages in mind. The script calls for three distinct locations–“the hye seat celestyall” (line 153) from which God speaks in the beginning; the position “here above” (line 895) to which the Angel leads Everyman’s soul; and the House of Salvation, the abode of Confession. That the House of Salvation and the “place here above” really are thought of as places distinct from the main playing area is proved by the two processions, each lasting for ten lines, the first by Everyman and Knowledge to the House of Salvation (lines 535-44), and the second by Everyman and the Gifts of Nature to the grave (lines 780-89). The most likely position for the grave is beneath the place “here above.”
Another distinctive feature of Everyman is the heavy cuing of entrances. Death, Kindred and Cousin, Strength, Beauty, Discretion and Five Wits, for instance, are all called on stage. Fellowship’s entrance is particularly well prepared for. Everyman pointedly mentions Fellowship’s name at line 197, and he is visible to the audience by line 202, since Everyman says, “I se hym yonder, certaynely,” but he seems not to be in a position from which to talk to Everyman until four lines later still. Similarly, Everyman’s return after attending mass is announced in some otiose lines:
V. Wittes: …Pes! For yonder I se Everyman come,
Which hath made true satysfaccyon.
Good Dedes: Me thynke it is he in dede. (lines 769-71)
Exits also tend to be slow. Characters, notably Fellowship (lines 295-302), Cousin (lines 373-76) and the Gifts of Nature (lines 794-850) exit with an exceptional number of lines spoken while on the move.
Taken together, the heavy cuing and the lengthy exits suggest that off-stage in the playwright’s conception was some distance away from the main playing area. A large, and therefore probably outdoor set seems to be envisaged, and this further supports the view that early performances were on detached stages.
The main symbolic division in Everyman is not between virtues and vices, as in most English morality plays, but between characters who point the way to salvation and morally neutral characters. God, Good Deeds, Knowledge, Confession, the Angel and the Doctor are opposed to such figures as Death, Goods and Five Wits, who are more or less well-disposed towards Everyman or more or less indifferent. An obvious way of expressing this opposition in the terms of early sixteenth-century staging would have been to associate the salvation figures with raised structures and the neutral figures with the central playing area. The “cold ground” from which Good Deeds first speaks might have been used again as Everyman’s grave, placed under the stage from which the Angel addresses Everyman, and Knowledge might have emerged from the House of Salvation to play her part.
Number of Stages
Whether the early productions of Everyman used one, two or even three stages, and whether Good Deeds’ “cold ground” and Everyman’s grave were in fact the same structure cannot now be determined. The playwright left this decision to the performers, as one of their contributions to his work’s artistic realisation. The evidence on this question that can be deduced from the text and from other multiple-stage plays is inconclusive.
If “the hye sete celestyall” and the place “here above” were combined in a single structure, the actor of God would be able also to play the Angel’s part. This seems more likely than that God remains visible throughout the action, treating Everyman’s impassioned prayers (for example at lines 192 and 581) with indifference. However, God’s visibility to the audience may be supported by Knowledge’s line, “God seeth thy lyuynge in his throne aboue'” (line 637). If the same actor were able to play both God and the Angel, this would solve one of the difficulties of doubling. The grave might be placed under this structure and the House of Salvation would be a separate unit. This plan would reproduce features of the staging of The Castle of Perseverance, in which the Castle (symbolically equivalent to the House of Salvation) is detached from God’s scaffold.
Alternatively, it would be possible to combine God’s throne, the Angel’s place, the House of Salvation and the grave in a single tower-like structure. This would have the disadvantage of detaching Good Deeds from the other salvation figures. She could not begin speaking from the grave, since she must not be too close to the House of Salvation, to which Knowledge must conduct Everyman. On the other hand, a single actor would be available for God, Confession and the Angel. The stage plan of Perseverance differs from this arrangement in having heaven (God’s scaffold) as a separate structure, but resembles it in that Mankind’s death bed, from under which Anima (his soul) arises, is placed below the Castle. The arrangement also receives some support from the staging of The Conversion of Saint Paul, where a single scaffold, centrally placed, probably contained God, an angel, the Holy Spirit and some complicated machinery (Wickham English Moral Interludes 106).
The text of Everyman suggests and guides staging without prescribing. This is borne out by its multifarious inventive stagings in modern times. I shall mention two other ways in which the script supports the performers, before considering techniques by which it is likely to engage an audience.
Moves and Positions of Actors
The text makes many suggestions about actors’ moves and positions. Detailed stage direction could be added to many passages with ease. As an example, I have added stage directions to the following exchange, in which Fellowship comes to understand the significance of Everyman’s journey:
Everyman [looking at him].
In dede, Deth was with me here.
Felawship [backing away].
Now, by God that all hathe bought,
If Deth were the messenger,
For no man that is lyuynge to-daye
I wyll not go that lothe iournaye—
Not for the fader that bygate me!
Everyman
Ye promysed other wyse, parde.
Felawship [hesitantly]
I wote well I sayd so, truely;
approaching him suddenly]
And yet, yf thou wylte ete & drynke & make good chere,
Or haunt to women the lusty company,
I wolde not forsake you whyle the daye is clere,
Trust me veryly.
Everyman [shrugging him off and moving away]
Ye, therto ye wolde be redy!
To go to myrthe, solas and playe
Your mynde wyll soner apply,
Than to bere me company in my longe iournaye.
Felawship [making a stand]
Now in good fayth, I wyll not that waye;
[approaching him again]
But and thou will murder, or ony man kyll,
In that I wyll helpe thee with a good wyll. (lines 264-282)
In the play’s second half, the grouping of the characters, with Everyman as the central figure being supported in the first rank by Good Deeds and Knowledge, and in the second by Strength, Discretion, Beauty and Five Wits will suggest visually effective, symmetrical stage arrangements to most directors. If Everyman stands centre after his confession, with Knowledge and Good Deeds on either side, the arrangement testifies to the order that Everyman has now achieved in his inner life. Everyman’s questions to Knowledge and Good Deeds and their sequential answers create a choric effect that further suggests orderliness (lines 654-667). On their entrance immediately following, the Gifts of Nature can stand behind the central three in a row or semi-circle. Once this positioning is established, subsequent stage movements flow very easily. While Everyman is off-stage receiving communion and extreme unction from Priesthood, Five Wits has merely to step forward to harangue the audience and to chat with Knowledge; the touching of the rood (line 778) can be a single symmetrical action by Strength, Discretion, Beauty and Five Wits together–this worked well in a park performance in Townsville, Queensland. Then the escort can line up rapidly to conduct Everyman to the grave. Stage balance is maintained as each of the Gifts of Nature departs in turn to alternate sides, and the dying Everyman remains behind, with Knowledge and Good Deeds once again to the right and left of him. Knowledge can step forward to comment (lines 888-893) as Everyman and Good Deeds enter the grave. Text invites stage movements that resemble a choreographed dance.
Dialogue and Line Learning
Because the dialogue consists mostly of brief questions-and-answer, and because only Everyman’s part is of any length, the text requires limited line-learning. As in The Castle of Perseverance and other multiple-stage plays, one or two professional actors could produce an adequate performance, with local actors doubling in the minor roles. Several of the dialogue patterns, which were probably created for the audience’s instruction, have the secondary effect of aiding the actors’ memories. Beauty, Strength, Discretion and Five Wits, for instance, almost always have lines in that order, which is also the order, symbolically appropriate, of their final individual exits dramatising Everyman’s failing physical and mental powers.
Again, the patterning of Everyman’s soliloquies in the first half is likely both to assist the initial learning of lines, and to aid an actor in difficulties. Although there are no close, and therefore potentially confusing, verbal resemblances, each soliloquy consists of a lament, a recapitulation of events, a moral interpretation of them, and an idea of what to do next. The first three soliloquies, have keynote apostrophes–to God the Creator–“Lorde, helpe, that all wrought!” (line 192), to the blessed Virgin–“A, Lady, helpe!” (line 304), and to Jesus (line 378; see Kaula 10-11).
Dramatic Patterning
Words such as “pattern,” “order” and “symmetry” can hardly be avoided in discussions of the morality plays, including Everyman, and they have already been used in this discussion. What is important is the life with which the playwrights endowed their patterns, and whether they used them subtly with moderation, or to excess with subsequent stiffness. The writer of Everyman handled his patterns with unerring liveliness and lightness.
Scenes of Rejection
The dangers of the first half are that the scenes between Everyman and his false friends will go on too long and become repetitive. But the scenes of rejection halt at the number of perfection and the godhead–three, which happens also to be perfect for theatre. Fellowship, Kindred, Cousin and Goods comprise a concise statement of the diverse aspects of creation with which humans seek to assuage their existential loneliness. The rejection scenes vary both visually and in their dialogue. Fellowship is alone, but Kindred and Cousin meet Everyman as a pair. They are lively characters, only briefly on stage, who contrast with the immovability of Goods. The dialogue creates tension as Fellowship asserts and reasserts his faithfulness (lines 212-240) and tries to penetrate the obscure language of Everyman’s request (lines 241-263). By contrast, Kindred’s and Cousin’s professions of friendship are brief (lines 319-326), and although Everyman explains his dilemma even less plainly to them, they understand him readily (lines 327-344). The rejection scenes therefore produce tension in different ways. Unlike Fellowship, Cousin and Kindred are unembarrassed by their refusal, and make comic alternative offers and excuses. Goods, too, passes through the protestations quickly and readily comprehends Everyman’s plight, but far from being comic his refusal is morally-based, though Goods himself does not understand in that light.
Two Broad Contrasts:
A. Between scenes of few and many characters: Before Everyman turns for counsel to Good Deeds, on-stage characters are nearly always limited in number to two. Between his scene with Death and his scenes with his false friends, Everyman experiences a frightening isolation–existential loneliness. However, after he calls on Good Deeds, he is never again alone on stage.
B. Between static and active characters and scenes, e.g. In the first half God’s long speech contrasts with the on-stage mobility of Death, which creates his force and fearsomeness: “Lorde, I wyll in the worlde go renne ouer-all/ And cruelly out-serche bothe grete and small” (lines 72-73). In the play’s second half, however, mobility and a well-occupied stage are associated with spiritual health and security.
The physical immovability of both Goods (in the first half) and Good Deeds (in the second) demonstrates their uselessness to Everyman as companions on his journey, thereby increasing Everyman’s isolation and the suspense of the play’s middle section. Since Goods complains of his immobility in his first words, probably he should not exit when his spoken part is completed. Everyman can make use of him when he divides his goods between the poor and his just creditors (lines 699-702). If Goods remains on stage after Everyman has completed his pilgrimage, this is a visualisation of Goods’ nature–he is in the world and of the world.
The suspense declines as Everyman and Knowledge walk to the House of Salvation, but builds during the long prayer to the Trinity and the scourging, during which Everyman is the only active figure: Good Deeds, Confession, and Knowledge–and God and Goods if they are still visible on stage–do not move. After the penance is complete, Good Deeds’ lines giving thanks for her restored mobility release the tension of the play’s centre. This is a turning point. Everyman’s re-clothing in the garment of contrition follows immediately, and an impression of joyful activity is created by repeated references to his proposed pilgrimage, even though this doesn’t occur until later:
…Whan ye to your iourneys ende come shall ( line 641)
And lette us go now without taryenge. (line 651)
Yet thou must lede with thee/ Thre persones of grete myght. (lines 657-658)
The entrances of the Gifts of Nature further liven the stage movements and lighten the mood.
Five Wits’ address and his talk with Knowledge slow the pace before Everyman confidently leads Knowledge and the Gifts of Nature on their pilgrimage. The journey that terrified an isolated Everyman in the play’s beginning has been reinterpreted, in part by a feature of performance that consistently equates actors’ movements on a crowded stage with safety.
The soundest base for appreciating the expert stagecraft of Everyman is witnessing a production that does justice to the script. Such an appreciation can be arrived at more abstractly by comparing and contrasting Everyman with other moralities also performed in the late Middle Ages. The playwright does not court the audience with robust comic techniques, such as those relied on by interludes staged indoors. Nor are there elaborate props or stage effects, as in other plays written for multiple stages. Everyman abandons gimmickry and spectacle in favour of a subtler and more effective dramaturgy.
Works Cited
Baker, D. C. and J. L. Murphy. “The Late Medieval Plays of MS. Digby 133: Scribes,Dates and Early History.” Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama X (1967): 154-63.
Bevington, David. From “Mankind” to Marlowe. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1962.
Cawley, A. C. ed. Everyman. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1961.
Harbage, Alfred. Annals of English Drama, 975-1700. London: Methuen, 1964. Supplement, S. Schoenbaum, Illinois: Northwestern U, 1966.
Kaula, David. “Time and the Timeless in Everyman and Dr. Faustus.” College English 22 (1960): 1-11.
Wickham, Glynne. Early English Stages, 1300 to 1600. Vol. I. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963.
Wickham, Glynne, ed. English Moral Interludes. London: Dent, 1976.