WORCESTER, Mass. – Baba Brinkman will perform “The Rap Canterbury Tales” on Nov. 1 at 7:30 p.m. in the Levis Browsing Room in Dinand Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The event is free and open to the public.
“The Rap Canterbury Tales” first appeared at the Edinburgh Festival in 2004, selling out most of its run and garnering rave reviews. It is a re-creation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th century poem, in which a group of pilgrims traveling from London to Canterbury enter into a tale-telling contest.
Every element of the plot closely parallels Chaucer’s original text, but in a contemporary setting. Brinkman plays Chaucer, who is both the narrator and a participant in the pilgrimage. In this case, he is a hip-hop fan who goes to a rap concert and manages to stow away on the tour bus after the show. The rappers, to his surprise, decide to stage a storytelling battle to help pass time on the road between gigs, and each of the tales is an exact retelling of one of the pilgrim stories.
As the narrator, Brinkman/Chaucer attempts to recount the exact experience of the journey word for word, transforming into the various characters to tell their tales.
The event is sponsored by the Visiting Writers Lecture Series, the English department, and the Office of the Dean.
Baba Brinkman Brings ‘The Rap Canterbury Tales’ to Holy Cross
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