RIP HER TO SHREDS Will Come to Edinburgh Fringe
Haston House will present the dark comedy at Underbelly Cowgate's Iron Belly, exploring mean girl culture and witchcraft.
Haston House will present Rip Her To Shreds at Underbelly Cowgate, Iron Belly, 5 – 30 Aug 2026.
Channelling the feral undercurrent of mean girl culture and the intoxicating violence of suppressed feminine rage, Rip Her To Shreds examines internalised misogyny and the nuances of early 2000s girlhood. After being dumped by her boyfriend for a shiny new freshman, wannabe queen bee Beth and her unruly dorm-mates Mercy and Bo spiral into a feverish cycle of obsession and rivalry, their fixation on boys, bodies and social status warping into something far more dangerous as each girl discovers volatile magical powers. Through a lyrical script and sharp fast-paced physical comedy that captures their demonic possession and impulses, loyalties fracture and reform, exposing the simmering aggression beneath their glossy facades. Created out of frustration with the way young women are portrayed and belittled in popular media, Rip Her To Shreds unmasks the culture of gossip and cruelty in a skewering of toxic hierarchies imposed on young women.
Playwright and performer Isabelle Barbier said, “I started writing Rip Her To Shreds when I had a lot of my own girlish-rage to exorcise. Anger has always been an embarrassingly icky emotion for me to express, and avoiding it became an art. My early social education was to be cute and as easily digestible as possible, so I perfected my own “chill girl” performance to stay safe. But pent up aggression bubbled in my body for years, making me sick. The characters in the play are obsessed with boys, their bodies, and gossip. But beneath their “surfacey-ness” lives anxious yearning, outrage and repression. What began as a confession letter written from my shadowy-wounded teen self became a ceremony of letting go. There was healing in reckoning with my own inner mean-girl and setting her free. In this play the words spoken are ugly, absurd, and even violent but they are intentional offerings in this performed ritual of rage. For the demonic-girly-monster to be defeated, she must first be seen, and perhaps even loved.”
Isabelle Barbier is a New York City based writer and performer who tells very silly and very serious stories about everyday feminine rebellion. Her screenplays have been finalists for the Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting and the Black List x Women in Film Fellowship, and have taken top honors at the San Francisco IndieFest. She has appeared on screen in The Other Two (HBO Max), Actual People (MUBI), and CRSHD (Tribeca Film Festival). As a playwright, she received the Judith Champion Launch Commission from the Atlantic Theater Company, and is a proud member of the inaugural BaylistAward cohort. Rip Her To Shreds is her debut play, and has been in production since 2016, with readings at Dixon Place and ART in NYC. In 2022 the show had a workshop performance as a part of Ars Nova ANT Fest. Rip Her To Shreds marks Isabelle's debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
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