Bear North at Sweet Werks

Bear North
Sweet Werks, Middle Street
***** (5 Stars)

Bear North by Brainfruit is absolutely charming and memorable.  Brainfruit is narrator-poet-singer Roy Hutchins and multi-instrumentalist Sue Bradley and they are joined by guitarist Patrick Knowles and dancer Laura Davis performing something that is more than a play or a collection of songs. It’s deep in a good way! You don’t have to understand it all at once, you’ll remember and come back to it.  I saw Roy Hutchins perform Whale Nation in the late 1980s, a collaboration with the poet Heathcote Williams. It was extremely memorable and moving.  Williams died in 2017, and following this Hutchins devised this collection of stories, folk songs, poems and dances set in a mystical Canadian town called Deep Water Point (793 inhabitants!). It’s funny and interactive too, with the audience feeling relaxed enough to join in by throwing in ideas.  It’s simple but there’s lots to look at. From the dancing bear / wolf / buffalo to Roy’s not-incongruous dress, and Sue’s strange foot instruments, called a wazinator!  Roy dreams the stories and lyrics and the songs are co-written with Sue – they are haunting yet not scary.  The fiddle playing is superb and becomes flowing water, or running animals.

You’re transported to a log cabin, and from songs such as Bear in a cave, Grizzly waltz, Buffalo’s revenge, Waterfall, you forget this is a fringe show, and feel like you’re deep in Canadian nature. There’s a saloon bar in Alaska called the Red Dog Saloon and it felt like there. It doesn’t feel made up, it feels completely authentic. The stories all sound so real. They have a campfire quality, and there is a lot of held sadness, like a quiet, stoic grief being comforted among friends. It’s mysterious too. Especially as there is a dancing animal alongside it all, showing that animals have their more than rightful place in this band of soulful souls.

If you love nature, animals, folk songs, the Northern Territories, campfires, stories, shows with meaning and heart, then you’ll love Bear North!

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