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Everyman review – a rousing display.

4 / 5 stars
Olivier, London
Rufus Norris begins his directorship at the National with Chiwetel Ejiofor starring as a superb Everyman in Carol Ann Duffy’s take on the 15th century morality play
‘He has had, from his earliest stage appearances, the ability to radiate’: Chiwetel Ejiofor as Every
‘He has had, from his earliest stage appearances, the ability to radiate’: Chiwetel Ejiofor as Everyman at the National. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
By their first productions shall ye know them. Or shall we? When Trevor Nunn took over as artistic director of the National Theatre, he opened with a production of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People that was choreographed like a musical.
Nicholas Hytner began with an Iraq-inflected Henry V that prefigured his sharp urban Shakespeares. Rufus Norris starts with what is essentially a new play – Carol Ann Duffy’s 21st-century version of Everyman. He uses it to give a rousing display of his theatrical lexicon: brilliant visual effects, inventive music, diverse casting, environmental concern.
The casting sets out to stir. God is a woman. Wearing Marigolds and pushing a mop, Kate Duchêne gives the divine boss a world-on-her-shoulders weariness. Dermot Crowley is a fine and caustic Death, in surgical overalls. “You’re taking it very personally,” he says to Everyman, about his impending exit from life. Chiwetel Ejiofor is Everyman; “Ev” to his intimates. He is everything you would want in a role that requires him to command attention without being overwhelming. He has had, from his earliest stage appearances, the ability to radiate, to transfix by quietness as well as by sudden flares. He uses that to the full here.
The visual effects are tremendous, from the opening moment when Ev plummets from top to bottom of the stage. Tal Rosner’s spinning videos evoke tsunami and griddling rain, and scatter blocks of colour as if a Matisse was being dismembered. A derelict natural world is conjured in a marvellous episode dominated by plastic-bag monsters. A giant fan scatters rubbish – and is then turned on to the audience. Music weaves together the medieval and the modern.
There is a difficulty. It lies in Duffy’s script. This is lively, demotic, outspoken – as is the 15th-century morality play, though that did not mention colostomy bags. Yet it is also avowedly secular. Take away from Everyman the fear of Judgment, and you are left with an often attenuated satire on 21st-century consumerism. Justified, perhaps, but frequently familiar – and, in the case of the coke-snorting, roaring, sharp-suited binge with which the play begins, over-extended. It is unlikely that anyone will leave the theatre frightened for their own life. Neither – there is a muddle between the personal and the universal– are they likely to fear anew for the future of the world. The sensational staging, with gilded mannequins pirouetting around as Everyman’s earthly goods, does not provide that fear. Still, it can magnetise an audience.

theguardian

Everyman

a new adaptation by Carol Ann Duffy
★★★★
‘Bold. Attention grabbing. A startling contemporary version by Carol Ann Duffy.’
Evening Standard

Playing until 30 August

Everyman - a figure in a bleak space with cartoon finger pointing down at his head

Everyman

Limited availability in June, good availability from mid July - Day Tickets and Friday Rush available.
Friday Rush
Every Friday at 1pm a limited number of £20 tickets for the following week’s performances will be released online. Find out more.
£15 Day Tickets
Available in person on the day of the performance. Find out more.
NT Live
Broadcast on 16 July, 7pm. Find your nearest venue.
Everyman is successful, popular and riding high when Death comes calling. He is forced to abandon the life he has built and embark on a last, frantic search to recruit a friend, anyone, to speak in his defence. But Death is close behind, and time is running out.
One of the great primal, spiritual myths, Everyman asks whether it is only in death that we can understand our lives. A cornerstone of English drama since the 15th century, it now explodes onto the stage in a startling production with words by Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate, and movement by Javier De Frutos.
Chiwetel Ejiofor takes the title role.
Contains strong language and adult themes
School groups: suitable for KS4+

Talks and events

Chiwetel Ejiofor on Everyman
Wed 22 July, 3pm
Photography by Simon Sorted
  • People, Places and Things. Superimposed photo of a woman's head with her face repeated twice, once in red once blue
  • Jane Eyre. Woman in a pale dress with an image of flames projected onto her
  • wonder.land - a grinning cartoon cat
  • War Horse
  • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
  • Rules for Living. Instruction image for combining people and objects
  • Parades banner for Light Shining in Buckinghamshire
  • Everyman - a figure in a bleak space with cartoon finger pointing down at his head
  • The Beaux' Stratagem - Portrait of an 18th century woman, collaged and retouched
  • The Red Lion. Blurred figure holding a football in a doorway, lit from behind
  • The Motherf**cker with the Hat. Illustration of a head with a hat but no face
  • We Want You to Watch. Female head with wide open mouth and wide open mouths for eyes
  • A Declaration from the People. A graffiti-style wall mural with the title and a sunburst on a brick wall
  • An Oak Tree. Instructional diagram of one male figure raising and lowering another with their hand, as if by magic
  • Connections 2015: photomontage with a plastic chair, stage lights and sneakers
  • Brainstorm. Teenage boy with blue exploding head
  • Three Days in the Country: A woman's arms against a tree trunk
  • Our Country's Good: illustration of a figure in the distance with a manacle on the fore-ground
  • People, Places and Things. Superimposed photo of a woman's head with her face repeated twice, once in red once blue
  • Jane Eyre. Woman in a pale dress with an image of flames projected onto her
  • wonder.land - a grinning cartoon cat
National Theatre, South Bank, London, SE1 9PX.
Box Office 020 7452 3000
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