Overstuffed With Stuff

Boy, are we sick of stuff. Getting it, having it, giving it. Fed up with the glut and tyranny of stuff. Hate that stuff.

Stuff is like roaches; you clean out one, and somehow two or five or six more take its place. Stuff infests the closets and overruns the kitchen cabinets.

Stuff must be hard-wired into our brains; Theodore Kaczynski, who eschewed some of the more important rituals of hygiene, nonetheless owned three typewriters.

And yet . . . the kids whine for it: See the movie, eat the fast food, buy the action figures, or else. The holiday gift swap, the in-laws who think money is a tacky present, the wedding shower and the office farewell--nothing will do but to give the gift of merchandise.

Yeah, that stuff, man--it’s a killer.

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In England circa 1495, a play that would last longer than “Cats” began its run. The country was beginning to prosper after its civil wars, and the sumptuary laws that limited the number of courses in a meal and declared which classes could wear silk rather than coarse wool were lightening up. Even a farmer could think about getting another cow or buying a second wimple for the little woman. And here was the morality play “Everyman,” a cautionary tale about worldly ambition outrunning the soul.

Five hundred years later--and after hours, so as not to interfere with commerce--the Cornerstone Theater Company has been staging “Everyman in the Mall,” last weekend at the Montclair Plaza and tonight at the Topanga Plaza.

A screenwriter would comfortably pitch it as a bittersweet “Christmas Carol”-meets-”Indecent Proposal,” but more unnerving than smug. An after-hours mall is already an unnatural place, still filled with that cozy, cinnamon-roll scent that somehow loosens pockets and unsnaps purses. It is there that Everyman’s characters, updated now to two genders and several races, racket across the tiled floors with shopping bag props and racks of garment bags.

Act I: In a glass elevator in mid-shopping binge, your average Joe encounters Death, in very fly sunglasses and a prizefighter’s hooded black robe.

“Thou comest when I had thee least in mind!” sputters Everyman.

“Riiight,” says Death sagely.

Everyman tries to bribe Death, to buy time, and finally is allowed to take a buddy with him to his deathward journey. Funny thing, though--all his old reliables disappear. After swearing “by Ann Taylor” to stick with him, Everyman’s best friend is outta here. His relatives bail. He rummages through his wallet for the ultimate platinum card to save him.

Finally he turns to his stuff, to which he croons, “I have thee loved and had great pleasure/All my life--days on goods and treasure.” And from the shop window of the Millennium Ladies Apparel steps platinum-wigged Goods, who teases him, then blows him off with “farewell and have a nice day.”

In the end, only Knowledge and Good Deeds (who addresses Everyman as “my special friend” in Mr. Rogers singsong) stick by him to the end like the Tin Man and the Scarecrow. (So too, incidentally, does the audience of mostly twenty- and thirtysomethings, traipsing through the mall from scene to scene.)

And as the electronic bell tolls the happy expiration of Everyman on a paramedics’ gurney, and as Death again takes the balcony in front of JCPenney to deliver a stern and uplifting moral, I am horrified at what pops unbidden into my head: I wonder whether my 25% discount coupon good on all regularly priced JCPenney merchandise has likewise expired.

*

Last week in the mail a marketing research survey masquerading as a personality quiz arrived. What are your hobbies? it asked perkily. Check all that apply: . . . building models . . . gourmet cooking . . . hiking . . . shopping . . .

Shopping, a hobby? Spending money has become an art, a skill, a pastime? Like playing the piano or crocheting?

This week it was the first of the Christmas catalogs, fluttering into the mailbox like it was as welcome and as expected as the first robin of spring, extolling an $800 gold fountain pen and a $49.95 limited-edition knickknack of Santa on a Harley.

*

The French phrase for window-shopping is leche-vitrines, window-licking, a much better appraisal of the languid and covetous slow-motion pastime than the English.

Yet Saturday night in an empty mall, no one dawdled after the play to gaze with leisure or longing at all the great stuff in the shop windows. We slunk out . . . past all seven deadly sins: Envy (the jewelry store), Greed (the Versateller), Pride (the NordicTrack shop), Lust (Victoria’s Secret), Sloth (ads for the new prime-time shows), Gluttony (Burger King), and lastly, Anger (they’re all closed!).

But we’ll be back. There are only 62 shopping days left until Christmas.