The conceit may be strange, but one performer’s energy can make all the difference.

In Daniel Beaty’s show, Emergence-See!, now being performed at Arena Stage, a slave ship has shown up in a modern-day New York harbor. Protagonist Rodney’s father’s headed right towards it, as it’s messing up the poetry slam in which he’s supposed to be performing.

A little farfetched? Truly. But Emergence-See! isn’t a show that is dependent on its set-up. It’s one driven by the charisma, wordplay, and raw emotion of each of the many characters Beaty embodies throughout the night.

Male or female, gay or straight, poor or rich, Beaty shifts easily from character to character, to the point one barely realizes it’s just one man handling all these roles. He’s also got a great voice, and peppers the dialogue with an occasional tangent into well-known numbers, like “Wade In The Water,” always with a winking kind of flair.

Emergence-See! has both substance and style. Rodney’s gay brother, his defensive father, his brother’s Jamaican eye-candy — these are characters rather than caricatures, even when the individuals are given only a few moments onstage. And no character has easy answers — each wrestles with outrage, guilt, determination and frustration, without any real satisfaction. And while this all sounds a bit heavy-handed, that’s hardly the case — the show delivers laughter as often as it does poignancy.

But the well-written work wouldn’t succeed without Beaty, and the show survives on his charisma. Never is this more apparent than during the show’s poetry jams — Beaty builds a slow crescendo with each performance, enthusiastically bringing the audience along with him. Beaty’s talent awards him our allegiance, and as a result, we listen to his message of connection and redemption attentively.

Emergence-See! runs through July 22 at Arena’s Kreeger Theater. Tickets are available online.