Rapper and cultural critic Akala has argued that hip hop is actually closely connected to ancient and historical forms of oral storytelling, both in Europe and Africa. He points out the similarities between hip hop and Shakespeare in terms of poetic expression, experimental use of imagery and metre.7 Akala also notes how the oration style developed by the hip hop emcee or ‘rapper’ draws on West African traditions of oral storytelling rooted in the figure of the , who used song, poetry and music to comment upon society, and often level political criticism.8
Wasted plays with the hip hop tradition of calling on historical forms of expression. Tempest’s chorus, which as I argue above can be understood in terms of its hip hop context, also clearly draws on the ancient theatrical choral tradition. In Greek theatre, the chorus was a group of performers with no clear, distinctive individual identity, who commented upon the action of the play. As writer Kris Haamer explains, the Greek chorus had a number of functions, including ‘creating a more meaningful connection between actor and audience’; allowing the playwright to create ‘literary complexity’; and controlling the tempo of the play in order to ‘prepare audiences for certain key moments in the storyline’.9
We see all three of these elements of the Greek chorus working through Wasted’s Chorus. The characters are introduced as a homogenous, ethereal group with no clear identity. They speak to the audience, acknowledging the theatrical construction by pointing out that this is a play, taking place in the theatre; as such we can read their subsequent statements as comments upon the play’s action. The rhythm and metaphors spoken by the Chorus add literary complexity. The Chorus also changes the pace as we move between scenes: here Tempest is deftly controlling the audience experience, moving us into a state of thoughtful contemplation before the next ‘realist’ scene.
Tempest also calls on past theatrical traditions through the use of long monologues in each of the scenes, which have some parallels with the Shakespearean soliloquy. In these moments, although the characters do not speak with the sense of omnipotent ‘truth’ enabled by the Chorus, they do reveal elements of their inner lives that they are reluctant to show one another. The monologues are also not quite a direct address to the audience as Shakespearean soliloquies tend to be. Rather, they are delivered to Tony, the absent friend. In this way Tempest upholds the naturalistic world of the ‘scenes’, while exposing the fragility the characters find hard to share with one another.
Tempest’s playful juxtaposition of historical dramatic and contemporary forms is not limited to Wasted. Several of her other works, in various forms, particularly poetry, play with the ancient and the new in similar ways. In the epic performance poem Brand New Ancients (Battersea Arts Centre 2012), for example, Tempest brings the myths of the Greek gods to contemporary London. By narrating the stories of ordinary Londoners’ lives within an overarching framework of the mythical, she imbues what we might first think of as mundane with a sense of the profound and holy. Her collection of poems, Hold Your Own, meanwhile, uses the character of Tiresias, a gender-shifting clairvoyant from Greek mythology, as a recurring figure who frames an exploration of contemporary culture.