Daniel Koa Beaty in “Love Warrior”
WINSTON-SALEM – New Heritage Theatre Group’s Love Warrior, written by and starring Daniel Koa Beaty, jump-started the International Black Theatre Festival Monday night with a pyrotechnic display of heart, soul, talent, and resilience.
The show was presented after the star-studded opening-night gala and a short break in the main ballroom of the Benton Convention Center. Two drummers heralded the beginning of the play, which is told in poetry, prose, and song. It will move to Shirley Recital Hall at Salem College for the next two days of its run.
Beaty opens his tour-de-force show with the song “Wade in the Water” and a scene from a previous project, Emergency. In it, a slave ship rises in the Hudson River right in front of Liberty Island. People from all walks of life – the projects, academia, the business world – converge on the island and express their reactions to the mysterious appearance of the ship.
Contrasting what he calls the greatest symbol of bondage in the world – the slave ship – and the greatest symbol of freedom in the world – the Statue of Liberty, Beaty asks: What stands between you and your freedom? And exhorts the audience to heal the world in the spirit of the “love warrior.”
Beaty created 43 characters for Emergency, and he runs through a dizzying array of them here: the outspoken youngster Clarissa, her nerd boyfriend Peter, and her 82-year-old grandmother, to name just a few.
Next, Beaty told his life story. The actor narrowly averted being born in jail when his father, a drug dealer, informed on his bosses, and saved Beaty’s mother from being incarcerated. After that incident, Beaty’s father became addicted to the drugs that he had previously only sold.
Beaty’s father showed him great paternal love when Beaty was small. Upon waking in the mornings, they played knock-knock games and expressed their love for each other, but, one day, Beaty’s father did not appear, and his absence tore Beaty apart. He sings “Sometimes I Feel Like a Fatherless Child.“
Beaty’s speaking voice was powerful – he studied Shakespeare and opera at Yale on a full scholarship – and his singing voice can range from a rich, earthy baritone to an ethereal falsetto. In a powerful poem, he pleads, “Papa, come home!” and explains how he tried to father himself: “Walk like a God, and you will know the God within.”
Besides having a father addicted to heroin, Beaty says that his brother came home from serving in the U.S. Marines with a crack cocaine habit. Both of them passed away during the COVID times, and he grieves their loss.
During an especially low time for him before he fully discovered his talents, Beaty says that he saw a vision of himself dressed all in white, standing on a stage and performing. In Love Warrior, Beaty wore a pure white vest and trousers, and performed powerfully.
He told the audience that three things have sustained and inspired him through the good times and the bad: 1) a phenomenal mother, 2) a connection with Spirit, God, and the Ancestors, 3) letting himself be a vessel for God.
Beaty taught school while he was finding his place in the entertainment world, and that experience brought out in him a poem about the battle between the “nerd” and the “n” word. It is touching and funny and irreverent.
He talked openly and helpfully about his mental-health struggles. He says that he read books, went to therapy, and did spiritual practices, until he finally found a therapist who diagnosed his PTSD and truly helped him. He learned to care for his inner child and say, as an adult, “Those people who hurt you then cannot hurt you now.”
Beaty artfully led us through more important life events for example when he learned about his personal heritage when he visited the South Carolina plantation where a maternal ancestor, Lucinda Carson, was brought as a slave from Africa.
An 88-year-old white man came out of retirement to meet Beaty at the plantation house and told him that his ancestor was a true queen in Africa. She wore a royal shroud until, in 1863, Union Army soldiers took it from her and mocked her with it.
But the old curator knew the story and shared it with Beaty. That encounter led him to the village in Africa where Carson had been captured. The tribal elders tested Beaty’s courage and mettle before welcoming him into the tribe and “enstooling” him as a king.
A wonderful male dancer, Cain Coleman, joined Beaty onstage while the actor sang an a cappella version of “The Wind Beneath My Wings” to the sound of wind blowing, and again to the instrumental of “Sinnerman.”
After more wonderful stories and poems, Beaty ended his show so beautifully. He acknowledged that we are all afraid sometimes; we are all confused sometimes. When he was at his most afraid and confused, he clearly chose life. And like Beaty, maybe we should all “Wake up and dream!”
Besides Love Warrior, the International Black Theatre is presenting more than 120 theatrical performances, an international colloquium, a free film festival, and more between now and Aug. 3. The heritage, the history, the depth and breadth of the American and African theatre experience is spread out before us like a spectacular banquet.
Love Warrior continues through July 31 at Salem College. The International Black Theatre Festival continues at multiple stages in Winston-Salem through August 3. See our calendar for details.
