‘Witchcraft and demonic possession became a way to make the invisible visible’ – Isabelle Barbier on bringing Rip Her To Shreds to the Edinburgh Fringe

What happens when teenage rage, friendship and rivalry are unleashed through witchcraft? Rip Her To Shreds brings a feral new take on girlhood to the Edinburgh Fringe, and we spoke to its creator, Isabelle Barbier about turning suppressed anger into a darkly funny, supernatural exploration of identity and feminine rage.

Where did the idea for Rip Her To Shreds come from, and how has it changed since the earliest drafts back in 2016?

I knew I wanted to write something that captured the way women communicate. There's this wild, rhythmic, deeply intimate language that exists between girlhood friends—a way of speaking that can be hilarious, brutal, tender, and almost musical. I hadn't really seen that particular energy captured onstage, and I found myself longing for it.

I tend to write things that I wish existed in the world, so that's where Rip Her To Shreds began. The earliest drafts were really just conversations between friends, with a few elements of magical realism woven throughout. Over the past decade, those conversations gradually became stranger, funnier, and more theatrical. The supernatural expanded, the horror and comedy found each other, and the play grew into this feral exploration of girlhood and rage.

Why did you choose witchcraft and demonic possession as the way to tell a story about girls competing for status and attention?

When I was a teenage girl, anger felt like an unacceptable emotion to express. But the more I tried to repress it, the more it felt like it possessed me. Witchcraft and demonic possession became a way to externalise that feeling - to make the invisible visible.

I also think girls are often taught to direct their rage toward one another through competition rather than toward the larger systems that confine us. Horror gave me a language to explore that dynamic. It lets emotional truths become literal, so jealousy, shame, desire, and anger can take on a life of their own. In Rip Her To Shreds, the supernatural isn't separate from the girls' emotional lives; it's an extension of them.

The play deals with anger that's often considered "ugly" or unacceptable for young women to show. What was it like creating characters who get to be loud, messy and even violent on stage?

As someone who also performs in the piece, it feels deliciously cathartic to behave in all the ways I was taught girls should never be.

I think that's part of what audiences respond to, too. There's a feeling that we're all getting away with something together. We get to break the rules for sixty-five minutes and experience these emotions collectively instead of hiding them. There's something deeply joyful about that, even when the play gets dark.

Beth, Mercy and Bo start as rivals, but their loyalties keep fracturing and reforming throughout the play. How did you approach building those shifting relationships, both in the writing and in performance?

To me, the play is really about the fluidity of female friendship; how you can resent someone, compete with them, and still feel deeply, intimately intertwined with them.

In both the writing and the performance, I wanted the relationships to feel constantly in motion. Alliances shift from moment to moment because that's how these friendships work. A joke can become a betrayal, a fight can become an act of care, and the person you feel most threatened by can also be the person who knows you best.

The show has been described as a "ceremony" or "ritual" of letting go. Do you see this as a cathartic piece for the audience too, or is the catharsis mainly for the people making it?

I think the ideal outcome of any religious ceremony is that catharsis is felt by both the speakers and the audience, because one informs the other. Theatre works similarly; it’s a kind of ritual where we come together to feel big things safely, in real time, with witnesses.

For me, the catharsis isn’t located only in the making or only in the watching. It exists in the exchange between the two. The performers are affected by the audience, and the audience is affected by the performers, and something holy moves through that shared space that wouldn’t exist otherwise.

What do you hope audiences — especially anyone who recognises their own teenage self in these characters — take away from watching the show?

I’d love for them to give their teenage selves a hug. If audiences recognise something of their younger selves in these characters, I hope they leave feeling a little more tender toward that version of themselves.

Rip Her To Shreds is at the Edinburgh Fringe at Underbelly Cowgate from 5 – 30 Aug (not 18) at 12:35pm. Ticket information here: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/rip-her-to-shreds