Themes

Thinking through themes can enable us to consider how the plays we are studying operate intertextually: that is, how they connect with other plays, performances and works of literature. In Wasted, Tempest’s hybrid approach to form and genre (that is, her mixing of different forms and genres) means her work, as we have already seen, resonates across historical periods and connects with a range of other artistic works, despite being very much a product of its specific moment.

Loss

The figure of Tony, the lost friend, is present throughout Wasted. Tony’s absence tinges the action with poignancy, and serves as a constant reminder of the mortality of the other characters. Knowing that their lives too will end makes their ‘wasted’ states all the more pitiful, and the need to change even more urgent. The ever-presence of death in our lives is a theme that has been explored extensively in literature, drama and elsewhere. Think of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which the ghost of Hamlet’s father haunts the play. His mother’s warning to him in Act One, Scene Two, when she tells him to stop grieving his father, and reminds him that ‘All that lives must die’, imbues that play with a similar sense of the ‘waste’ that can come from dwelling in loss.

Hip hop, too, often deals with loss, particularly with the loss of friends gone too soon. In the popular 1997 release ‘I’ll be Missing You’, for example, Puff Daddy (subsequently known as P. Diddy, Diddy and Puffy) and Faith Evans commemorate their lost friend, the rapper Notorious B.I.G, who was murdered earlier that year. Like the characters in Wasted they reminisce over times shared together, directly address their absent friend and describe how, although no longer alive, he is still present (‘words can’t express what you mean to me / even though you’re gone, we’re still a team’).

Neoliberalism

The term ‘neoliberalism’ describes an advanced form of capitalism, characterized by free-market economics and the privatization of government provision of public services. Proponents of this model argue that it allows a growth in wealth for the richest, which will ‘trickle down’ to benefit all members of society. Those who oppose neoliberalism argue that, instead, it has created greater wealth disparity than ever, meaning that while a few people hoard massive wealth, huge numbers suffer as they struggle to meet the costs of living – or become trapped in soul-destroying routines. Critics also argue that neoliberal ideology promotes selfishness and exacerbates environmental degradation, as it consumes without replenishing and focuses on the success of the individual over the advancement of society at large.

Although Wasted does not address the crisis of neoliberalism directly and explicitly (plays that do this include Caryl Churchill’s Serious Money (Royal Court 1987)¹ and Lucy Prebble’s Enron (Chichester Festival Theatre 2009),² both of which look at the financial machinations of neoliberalism), it does reveal how the lives of those living under this unfair system play out. The Chorus particularly draws explicit attention to these conditions (showing us how the populace becomes ‘steeped in pretence’ as we navigate a system that has us ‘stressing over bills to pay’³).