Production photography by Julia Robertson.
The kitchen sink drama takes an abluted detour to the bathroom in Clare McIntyre’s LOW LEVEL PANIC.
Splish, splash, Jo is taking a bath, having a soak and a stroke when she is rudely interrupted by one of her flatmates, Mary.
Jo is pretty unabashed by the intrusion but Mary is apologetic and then mildly apoplectic when she discovers Jo has been perusing a porno mag. The “stick book” is a catalyst for a robust dialogue about sexuality, sexualisation, and body image.
Jo is looking forward to a night out on the tear, hoping to engage with somebody, anybody, anything is better than being alone. Mary is less looking forward to accompanying Jo, as a recent sexual assault has made her reticent and reclusive.
A third flatmate, Celia, enters, a product of the Princess Pamper economy, loaded with product and full of beauty care advice.
The bathroom is the perfect place to set a play about coming clean, literally and metaphorically, and the set by Jonathan Hindmarsh is a beauty, enhanced by Emma Lockhart-Wilson’s lighting.
Amy Ingram as Jo, packs on a big personality, a bravura that belies a bereft emotional fulfilment.
Kate Skinner as Mary nails the fragility, often on the brink of brittle, of a woman who has been traumatised by sexual abuse and rightly suspicious of men.
Geraldine Hakewill as Celia, is a vision of vacuous, vulnerable vanity, living in a bubble of cosmetics, flighty and flirty, flattering to males, fantasising her life as a glamorous Hollywood movie.
Director Justin Martin embroiders the piece by taking a three hander and peopling it with a male chorus who personify “the male gaze” and double both as benign dressers, stage hands, musicians, as well as the more malignant male manifestation of sexual predators. He has added songs and choreography to playful and poignant effect and also pitched up the provocative with teasingly voyeuristic staging while challenging the prurient use of contemporary technology.
With a trio of terrific performances, this production of LOW LEVEL PANIC is a high level theatrical treatment of three women’s complex relationships with their own sexual fantasies, their bodies and each other.