As a child growing up in Roundwood, in Co Wicklow, Kwaku Fortune was too shy to put his hand up for a part in the school play. At secondary school he got a callback for the role of Banquo after auditioning for Macbeth but “chickened out” and didn’t go. Two decades or so later, when the 34-year-old actor and writer hops on to a Zoom call it is from New York, where his new play recently had its world premiere.
The Black Wolfe Tone, as the New York Times puts it, is “a play about mental illness, and profoundly about identity – the inheritance of it; the fracturing of it; the ugly, racist questioning of it”. Initial reviews for the one-man drama, which Fortune is both the author and the star of, have been positive. One critic called it “an arresting and thought-provoking look into one man’s life”; another said it “confirms Fortune as an actor worth watching and watching for”.
“The responses have been nice,” the actor says with a grin. “For the most part it’s been really good, and it’s kind of touching that people are getting it and laughing, because it can be quite dark. But there’s a lot of comedy in it, too. I think when people are with you and they laugh, you’re on to something. The dark points are better with the balance of the light.”
The play tells the story of Kevin, a young man who has bipolar disorder. When we meet him he is confined in a psychiatric institution, where a panel is to assess whether he’s ready to be released. As well as mental health and identity, Fortune explores themes of generational trauma and violence – issues that have been woven into the fabric of his own life.
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He recalls growing up as one of the only people of colour in Roundwood, with a Ghanaian mother and an Irish father. His mother would laugh off the “playful and curious” questions from locals, but he recalls “getting in scraps” with other kids from time to time.
Acting did not become a serious pursuit until he was studying marketing at Tallaght Institute of Technology. Bitten by the bug through the college’s drama society, he dropped out of his course after being offered a TV opportunity. He eventually went on to study at the Lir Academy, Trinity College Dublin’s drama school, through a bursary. He graduated in 2017 alongside Paul Mescal.
“I love him. I wish him the best,” he says of his now globally famous classmate. “It couldn’t happen to a better man. He’s such a talent, but also such a hard worker and so confident.”
That level of fame doesn’t appeal to Fortune. “I think back in the day, when I was at the Lir, it was, like, ‘I want to be a star!’ but once you let those doors open you can’t close them,” he says. “I mean, of course you want the success, the money, but fame doesn’t interest me – and I think, unfortunately, they go hand in hand.
“I look at Cillian Murphy and Daniel Day-Lewis, and certain actors who don’t really court that, who are more about the work. I would love to work with all the greats – and I’d love to do great film and TV, and even great stage work – but I prefer to keep myself more private.”
Fortune has had his share of film and TV roles but has always been pulled back to the stage, often to more left-field roles. His previous work has included Marina Carr’s On Raftery’s Hill, Martin McDonagh’s Beauty Queen of Leenane and Playboyz, a contemporary reimagining of JM Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World. He’s drawn to “that kind of earthy, wild, dark, aggressive stuff, even though I’m a little puppy dog. The dark side is within us all, and that’s something I’m interested in exploring.”
His new play grew out of being asked to write something by Fishamble, Jim Culleton’s Dublin-based theatre company. Fortune’s schoolboy admiration for the 18th-century revolutionary Theobald Wolfe Tone – particularly his “outsider” status as a Protestant who was fighting for a united Ireland and equal rights for Catholics – was one of his starting points.
“I was always told what I was by other people – ‘not white’, ‘not black’, ‘not black enough’,” he says. “So I always had an affinity with Wolfe Tone in a weird kind of way. Maybe it was because I was told I ‘wasn’t Irish’; I really latched on to that, so the title just kind of fit with this play.”
The Black Wolfe Tone also has its origins in an incident when Fortune was racially abused on a bus several years ago, and told to “go back to your own country”. He responded by speaking to his aggressor in Irish, “and he was, like, ‘Is that supposed to be some f**king African language, some click-click language?’”
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He shakes his head, smiling. “It was funny, because I was performing in a way, as a kind of defence mechanism, to make everything light and comedic. But there’s also this feeling of ‘Everyone else could share his views’, because I was the only black person on the bus. So at four in the morning, in this kind of fever dream, I just wrote this little piece about it.”
Fortune has also had to deal with mental health issues that he initially hid from people, worried that he wouldn’t get work.
“I don’t suffer from it any more, thankfully. I take medication every night and keep on top of it, keep my routine,” he says. “But I did suffer with it as a young man, and I suppose the play explores the origins of that.
“A big question I always had was, ‘Why do I have it? Why me?’” He sighs, throwing his hands up. “I went a bit wild as a young man. I took a lot of drugs, psychedelics, all that kind of stuff – but a lot of my friends were also doing the same stuff, and they didn’t have the same response.
“So the play explores where it comes from. You look into genetics, or ‘Is it how I grew up? Is it identity? Is it about feeling misplaced? Was it drug-induced?’ It asks all these things, but I don’t think there is just one answer.”
The Black Wolfe Tone also explores the way violent behaviour is passed down through generations, a topic that Fortune is particularly conscious of now that he’s a father of a 17-month-old boy himself.
He based the play‘s father figure on his own dad, “but it’s also every Irish father, in a way,” he says. “Becoming a father during this process kind of flipped everything on its head, as well: the fear of trying to protect this little one.
“My dad is such a loving man, and he tried so hard – I was a boll**ks as well. I think we’re very alike, so we sparked off each other when I was a teenager. But he did his best for all of us.” Fortune smiles. “It’s interesting, because he wanted to come see the readings, and I was, like, ‘No, no, wait until it’s finished.’
His father’s going to see The Black Wolfe Tone when it’s in Bray, the actor says with a grimace. “So that’s going to be an interesting one.”
Fortune would love to make enough money to live in New York, where his play – which he’s hoping will open new avenues for him – is halfway through a month-long run at the off-Broadway Irish Repertory Theatre.
“I don’t want to jinx it, but I would love to maybe turn The Black Wolfe Tone into a miniseries. I have another film that I’m trying to write, as well, which is in the early stages,” he says. “I have loads of ideas for stuff, but I think the main goal is just to create more and to be able to produce my own work.”
He laughs when he thinks back to the young Kwaku, too shy to put himself forward for the school production of Cinderella. He’s come a long way.
“I wish I could just say to him, ‘Grow up, you little boll**ks, and just do it,’ because it was such a long journey to get here.” He grins, then pauses. “But maybe if I had said yes I wouldn’t be here now.” He shrugs. “I’d say, ‘Just go for it. Don’t be afraid.’”
The Black Wolfe Tone, staged by Fishamble, is at the Irish Repertory Theatre, in New York, until Sunday, June 1st; at Project Arts Centre, Dublin, June 4th-14th; at Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, Co Wicklow, on June 17th and 18th; and at Cork Midsummer Festival on June 20th and 21st
