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| Phoebe Taylor and Gabrielle Sing in Claire McIntyre's Low Level Panic |
Claire McIntyre’s 1988 play about society’s objectification
of women is a three-hander set in a share house, full of the drama and conflict
of living with strangers who are almost friends and the struggles of knowing the
right thing to feel when even your housemates tell you to toughen up.
Mary (Gabrielle Sing) is concerned about the nudie magazine
she’s found in the bin. Jo (Phoebe Taylor) wants to enjoy life, but often
retreats into fantasies about rich men and lorry drivers. Celia (Jessica
Martin) seems shallow, oblivious to what is really going on in the house –
swanning through life, to Jo’s dismay.
Thirty years from its first performance, Low Level Panic still feels vital, if
very much of its time. As much as this production uses the props of 2019, some
of the realities the play depicts feel dated. It’s not that the truth of
objectification has changed, but being concerned about softcore girlie
magazines in an era of internet-wide pornography casts Mary as a bit more naïve
than really makes sense.
Director Kotryna Gesait’s production in traverse is intimate
and hilarious, but never as confronting as it might be. The choice to direct Jo’s
fantasies at men in the audience creates a real tension, but works mostly as
comic value rather than digging deeply into what she is saying about men.
I was pleased with the choice to do the play in Australian
accents; the universality of the story would suggest this choice should be
uncontroversial, putting aside the British-isms conflicting with local place
names like Berwick.
More oddly, the decision to have the characters take on
other accents when discussing their fantasies puts the audience at a remove;
some of those stories should be heartbreaking and they are reduced to comic
runners.
There are moments when those walls come down, though.
Sometimes the artifice is undone and we are shown below the surface of Mary and
Jo – and the dramatic tension of McIntyre’s script is exposed to the audience.
Gabrielle and Phoebe play off each other magnificently. Phoebe is confident and
relaxed in the role of Jo, while Gabrielle slowly and subtly brings out the unease
Mary has about the world.
Low Level Panic is
a strong play with much to say. This production finds its truth about half of
the time, muddled by odd choices in dramaturgy and direction.
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