Nightwood Theatre – Diane Flacks Bear With Me

reviewed by Paula Citron
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Bear With Me
Nightwood Theatre
Written and performed by Diane Flacks
Directed by Kelly Thornton
At Berkeley Street Theatre Upstairs until Jan. 24
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Diane Flacks’ one-woman, autobiographical show Bear With Me is laugh-out-loud funny. The clever title refers to childbirth, and the script revolves around pregnancy and babies.

The unwilling Flacks was chosen to get pregnant when her lesbian partner Janis could not. Flacks is the birth mother of the couple’s sons Eli and Jonathan, and the play is based on her novel of the same name. There are many, many excruciatingly funny lines, and the heart of Flacks’ comedy is her razor-sharp, witty observations. There is always something fresh about her insights.

Flacks has always had rapid delivery, and as a result, words are lost or dropped, and this is a monologue where you want to savour every clever spoken morsel. As well, just at the end, we hear about problems with her second son’s birth, but Flacks elects to bypass this trauma. Perhaps that will be the sequel.

Bear With Me continues at Berkeley Street Theatre Upstairs until Jan. 24.