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).
Synopsis.
"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.
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.
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."
References.
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Further reading.
Publications.
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