BRIGHTON FRINGE: I Was a Bear – Laughing Horse @ The Walrus

Company: Greasy Girls

I was a bear is a snappy piece of pared-back comic theatre by Libby Waters and Sophia Trewick AKA Greasy Girls. They play two characters who meet in a therapist’s waiting room, and the dysfunctional friendship that develops between them is laced with exuberant cringecore humour that skitters over the surfaces of their mostly hidden traumas. Its pitch-perfect melding of comedy, pathos and tragedy make it one to see at this year’s Fringe.

In many ways the dynamic between Constance (Waters) and April (Trewick) is one of opposites attracting. Their friendship is instigated by chronic oversharer Constance, who is drawn to the more reserved April. Constance gleefully reveals that she only started therapy because it was a birthday present. It’s less clear why April is there. As the therapist (played by a hastily bespectacled Waters) only makes things worse, the support they desire comes instead through each other.

From that moment it becomes a lively flight of fancy on the theme of therapy. The dialogue consists mainly of the stilted exchanges between two people who don’t do small talk, but through this they are able to open up. Their honest responses to each other are often weirdly profound, like they’re suddenly able to channel a different energy because of this other person. The script crackles with a kind of mischievous poetry, and the lines are delivered with the timing of a stand-up comedy routine. Indeed when Constance previews some of her brilliantly awkward stand-up to a not vaguely amused April, it’s pretty much just a drawn-out continuation of her unhinged conversation style, including superb anti-one-liners like “why are all dinnerladies ladies?”

There is however an undercurrent of real emotion. Both women are vulnerable, in search of someone to cling to. They reveal elements of their lives to each other – their trauma leaking out in varied, sometimes fantastical, but always well-handled and often moving theatrical conceits. Other than a few props and an electronic keyboard upon which a couple of enigmatic interludes are played, the production is bare, with no backing track, microphones or lighting changes. Instead they rely on strong comic performances, a uniquely absurdist world view and some beautiful writing.

Runs until 19 May 2024