REVIEW: THESE DEMONS at Theatre503, 26 September - 14 October 2023

‘utterly engrossing and unpredictable’ ★★★★

These Demons, a new play by Rachel Bellman, opens with the teenaged Leah reading a few sentences from the Talmud about the mazzikim, invisible creatures that surround us “like a ridge around a field.” The three characters – Leah, her older sister Danielle, and their aunt, Mirah - are invisibly and visibly hemmed in, not least by the set. Representing one room in a dilapidated cottage and piled with books on demonology, the set is irradiated by a design of scribbled lines, like the pupil of an eye surrounded by an iris, or a cottage bordered by a dark wood, or an invitation to a bat mitzvah embellished with drawings of flowers. Through the window and translucent back wall of the cottage, we can see shadowy figures passing, only some of which are demons. The quotation about the mazzikim goes on, though, to describe them not just as lurking at the borders but already here: “Every one around us has a thousand on his left hand and ten thousand on his right hand.”

The demons are only part of the problem as the characters try to work out complicated family issues within the context of rising antisemitism. Or rather, the demons are at once real demons, personal ones, and societal ones. Sometimes all that can be done about them is not to exorcise them but to at least confirm, once and for all, that they are there; to establish their existence.

This play is at once very tense (I heard the people behind me remarking how scary it was as they left) and perhaps surprisingly, given the subject matter, funny. Three very good performances by Olivia Marcus, Liv Andrusier, and Ann Marcuson and Jasmine Teo’s capable direction bring the tightly written and clever script to life. At times the action can feel a little stagy, as in a moment, repeated with two different characters, in which they hear noises and raise a knife as if to strike. But the story is utterly engrossing and unpredictable. This is an incredibly assured debut play (longlisted for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Playwriting) that establishes Rachel Bellman as a writer to watch.

Photography: Lidia Crisafulli

These Demons, Rachel Bellman, Theatre503, 26 September - 14 October, Tanya Truman Productions https://theatre503.com/whats-on/these-demons/

Reviewed by Clio Doyle