Journal archive

Abstract: The article focuses on Bertolt Brecht’s play The Seven Deadly Sins (Die sieben Todsünden, 1933) and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Everybody (2017) on the background of the tradition of medieval Morality Theater. Both plays are explicitly derived from moralities, but the playwrights approach the options of the medieval genre in very different ways and pursue different aims. For Jacobs-Jenkins, as a postmodern author, both the Brecht theatrical traditions and the adaptation techniques of modern drama are equally important. It seems fruitful to regard the principles of both authors’ appeal to morality, as well as the parameters of the genre as such. The analysis of critical sources concerned with the study of medieval religious theatre, and specifically its English national variant, confirms that moralities, unlike mystery plays or miracles, are characterized by certain flexibility of the system of images and the plot construction, and necessarily possess such typical features of the genre as allegorism and didacticism. Written in the 15th century morality Everyman, being probably the most famous dramatic text of this genre, has won its status as a program work of medieval theatre not through strict following the canon, but as a memorable performance about the principal character’s encounter with Death, relevant in any epoch. The plot and the allegories of Everyman demonstrate the ability to transform – or be adapted; as a result, the play’s motifs can be traced both in the 16th century Humanist drama and in the 20th century modernist literature. Mostly, while adapting Everyman, playwrights seek for a greater psychological depth to the conflict of the play. But Brecht and Jacobs-Jenkins choose a different path, presenting the main character as “every person” without describing the personal traits in detail. The article treats both plays – The Seven Deadly Sins and Everybody – as successful dramatic experiments, hardly corresponding with the original ideas of the medieval genre of Morality Theater.

About the author(s) :

Elena G. Dotsenko

Ural State Pedagogical University (Ekaterinburg, Russian Federation)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7167-3865

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 17.08.2026; date of publication: 31.10.2026

References:

Alekseev, M. P. (1984). Literatura srednevekovoy Anglii i Shotlandii = The Literature of Medieval England and Scotland. Moscow: Vysshchaya shkola Publishing House, 351 p.

Andreev, M. L. (1989). Srednevekovaya evropeyskaya drama. Proiskhozhdenie i stanovlenie (X–XIII v.) = Medieval European drama: The origins and development (10^th–13^th centuries). Moscow: Iskusstvo Publishing House, 215 p. EDN TFPSLB.

Banham, M. (1995). The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1233 p. ISBN 9780521434379.

Benjamin, W. (2025). Brekht = Brecht. Moscow: Ad Marginem Press, 176 p.

Davenport, W. A. (1982). Fifteenth-century English Drama: The Early Moral Plays and their Literary Relations. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer; Totowa, N. J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 152 p.

Gorbunov, A. N. (2014). Ot sotvoreniya mira do ego kontsa (Misterii Yorkskogo tsikla) = From the creation to the end of the world (York Mystery Plays). York Mystery Plays, 767–829. Moscow: Ladomir Publishing House; Nauka Publishing House.

Happé, P. (1999). English Drama before Shakespeare. London; New York: Longman, 291 p.

Kelly, B. (2020). A Conversation with Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Text & Presentation, 2019, 5–26. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.

Mackenzie, R. W. (1966). The English Moralities from the Point of View of Allegory. New York: Gordian Press, Inc., 278 p.

Nekrasova, I. A. (2024). Religioznaya drama v teatre Zapadnoy Evropy XVI – pervoy poloviny XVII veka = Religious drama in the theater of Western Europe of the 16^th – first half of the 17^th century. Saint Petersburg: Publishing House of Russian State Institute of Performing Arts, 640 p.

Pavis, P. (1991). Slovar′ teatra = Dictionary of the theater. – Moscow: Progress Publishing House, 504 p.

Potter, R. (1975). The English Morality Play: Origins, History and Influence of a Dramatic Tradition. London; Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 286 p.

Schumacher, E. (1988). Zhizn′ Brekhta = The life of Brecht. Moscow: Raduga Publishing House, 352 p.