Writer: Laura Waldren
Director: George Turvey
The 2023 winner of the Papatango New Writing Prize has its premiere at the Arcola Theatre: Laura Waldren’s Some Demon, a three-act play set in a facility treating women with eating disorders. This multi-character piece explores different stages of treatment and reactions to therapy through the eyes of Zoe the most experienced of the group and Sam the newest arrival. An often-compelling play, running close to three hours, Waldren’s multi-faceted female-centric narrative is a layered examination of compulsion and its implications.
When Sam arrives at a specialist adult eating disorder unit, she quickly encounters cynical established resident Zoe, Nazia who cannot wait to be reunited with her partner outside and the tremulous Mara who is deep into her illness and resents any control exerted by the nurses. As time passes, the routines of therapy involving meetings, meal plans and constant observation affect the residents in different ways but what are they working towards?
In some ways, Waldren’s play has a feel of Alexander Zeldin’s work such as Faith, Hope and Charity, those verbatim plays that the National do so well, with real experiences and careful research feeding through the structure. And there is a raw integrity to Some Demon in which the scenarios Waldren creates have a painful authenticity that power a play that is heavily plot-focused. So, for all its variation and the cycles that the individuals in the play experience, the illness remains at the centre of Waldren’s analysis, a constant battle within each of them.
But Some Demon struggles with character depth, and although the patients are distinctly drawn, the audience never truly gets beneath the surface of Zoe, Mara, Sam and Nazia. Family struggles and backstories are referenced, repetitive cycles of illness are hinted at, even dramatised, and everyone worries about the future. In fact, the concern about living back in the world, away from the rules and protections afforded by the unit, is one of the strongest potential themes, yet Some Demon doesn’t dig quite deep enough to reach these women or their separate but collective struggle.
There is strong work from Sirine Saba as Zoe who has it all together until she really doesn’t, yet develops a maternal relationship with newbie Sam (Hannah Saxby) who is frightened and confident in equal measure. Both Witney White’s Nazia and Leah Brotherhead’s Mara are pushed into the background but both actors work hard to take their characters forward through the story although most of their respective recoveries remains offstage. Both Amy Beth Hayes as forceful nurse Leanne and Joshua James as the friendlier Mike add texture, particularly when the latter skirts too close to sharing his own truth and feels compromised as a result.
Waldren’s drama is too long, characters have lots of conversations but she could be more ruthless in selecting scenes that move either story or understanding of the subject forward to create a tighter focus. However, in capturing the intentions, frustrations and sense of defeat that the patients turn back on themselves, Some Demon is clear that there are no easy answers nor any single way through a complex illness.
Runs until 6 July 2024
