Boy with Beer | |
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Written by | Paul Boakye |
Date premiered | January 14th 1992 |
Genre | Drama |
Setting | A London flat |
Boy with Beer is a 1992 British in three acts play written by Paul Boakye and first performed at the Man in the Moon Theatre in January 1992. The play takes place over three nights each separated by one month. Boy with Beer is published by Methuen Drama in Black Plays 3 edited by Yvonne Brewster (1995).
Boy with Beer is the story of a growing love affair between two black men, fraught with prejudice and the pressures of machismo. Upwardly mobile Ghanaian photographer, Karl, is the older man in search of his "African Prince." What he finds is Donovan, a confused twenty-one-year-old Caribbean van driver he met in a heterosexual nightclub. The two men exchange telephone numbers and agree to meet. [1] The play opens as Donovan shows up outside Karl's flat the next night.
Boakye covers a good deal of this affair from the first unromantic, unprotected coupling to a semblance of understanding and shared brotherhood one month later, followed by a final admission of love and acceptance between the two men albeit under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. [2] In the final act, Donovan's pregnant girlfriend has discovered that she is HIV-positive. She has decided to terminate their child. Donovan turns up at Karl's home in tears. As the poetry writing, thoughtful sort, what should Karl do? He is in love with this confused, inarticulate homeboy, and Donovan, too, finally accepts his sexuality and that he has liked Karl from the start. He is indeed "a big black battyman…in love with big black men." [3]
Level-headed moustachioed photographer Karl (Clive Wedderburn) has trouble uncovering the finer feelings of coarse young raver Donovan (Roger Sewell), who's initially only after a quick shag and doesn't want his girlfriend to find out.
Boakye's inspired script gently explores their relationship. In so doing, it goes quite a way towards constructing the kind of vibrant characterisations for ethnic London which Spike Lee and others have provided for ethnic New York. The acting is stunning, the production is both funny and sexy, and the occasional continuity problems barely detracts from the overall feel. Amidst the tat of the King's Road, it shines like a star.
Life was once a rave where all the sexual boundaries were colourfully blurred. But by the end of the play, Donovan finds he has to make a hard choice between a man or a woman. Suddenly his identity begins to come together. Notice how physical and edgy his language is. It has a wonderful musical quality and is full of freedom. The actor must note the changes in Donovan's life over a short span of time.
In his self-produced Boy with Beer (1992), Boakye chooses to deal with hitherto taboo subjects including the making of a black gay couple, bisexuality, and AIDS.
Playwright Paul Boakye examines gay love and AIDS in his latest play. Paul Boakye climbed off a bus one day and overheard something that touched him to the core. A Black man was telling his girlfriend, "When I first heard about AIDS, I thought, 'Boy, I ain't never going into a swimming pool again!'" This passing comment became the basis for the playwright's most recent success, Boy with Beer. This is Now Theatre Company examines the growing sexual relationship between two Black men and has been hailed as a first in British theatre.
On a set appropriately dominated by a double bed, the turbulent and downright erotic encounters of Karl, a black, gay, well-adjusted, well-to-do photographer (Treva Sealy) and closeted homeboy Donovan (John-Loyd Stephenson) gradually unravel some of the existing issues and attitudes encountered by and between black gay men…It's hard not to be completely drawn into this turbulent relationship: with every twist, you'll be praying that love really can conquer all.