Low Level Panic at the Orange Tree Theatre

5 STARS. "The play grabs your attention and does not let go until the lights go out again" says Richard Davies. Showing at the Orange Tree Theatre until March 25

Low Level Panic by Clare McIntyre is a play about the objectification of women and how this affects lives and relationships. It takes place entirely in the bathroom of a flat shared by three twenty-something women. The lights go up and you are instantly confronted with Jo lying naked in the bath describing her fantasies, while her flatmate Mary leafs through a discarded porn magazine in disgust. Subtle it is not. In your face it definitely is. The play grabs your attention and does not let go until the lights go out again.

Director Chelsea Walker has done an outstanding job with this exciting and energetic new production at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond. Much has changed since the play premiered at The Royal Court in 1988, but you don’t have to be a sociologist or a feminist to know that the theme remains highly relevant today. Young people grow up thinking that hard core pornography available for free via the internet is the norm. Advertisers bombard us with images of unattainable physical perfection, while footballers confusing inebriation for consent have moved from the back pages to the front. So yes, this is a play that every young adult should see.

Katherine Pearce and Sophie Neville are both outstanding as Jo and Mary. It takes extraordinary guts to be fully naked in such an intense theatrical setting, while describing intimate masturbation fantasies and delivering some brilliantly funny comic lines. Pearce is a remarkable talent and totally believable as an averagely body-dysmorphic young woman who “doesn’t have enough self loathing” to do anything about her physical appearance. As she cheerfully admits, in her fantasies she is always a lot thinner, while the men (usually lorry drivers) are “very male”, although she “doesn’t really know what that means”. Well, who does?

8_ Katherine Pearce and Sophie Melville in LOW LEVEL PANIC - Orange Tree Theatre - photo by Helen Murray.jpg

Mary is more complex, traumatised by a sexual assault she suffered while cycling home from work wearing a skirt. Recounting this horrific experience, Neville movingly reveals the full scale of her character’s terror and vulnerability. As a result, Mary now can’t face dressing up to go out for the night because it makes her “feel like a tart”.

The third flatmate, Celia, has only a supporting role, but Samantha Pearl plays her to perfection. Literally. Celia focuses on the things in life that she can control, like her bathroom ritual with spray perfume and the little row of toiletries that she neatly assembles around the bathtub. Yet each time she is frustrated by her flatmates’ selfish and slobbish behaviour, bringing back all the horror of shared bathrooms. Celia suspects that her flatmates don’t like her much and she’s probably right, especially when she succeeds in “meeting someone” at a party, causing Jo to lament “I wish I was in a couple. Life would be so much easier!”

Designer Rosanna Vize has done an excellent job with the set, which includes a fully plumbed green bath tub, as well as the obligatory spider plant, cactus and industrial size bottle of Listerine. While I came away feeling very slightly nostalgic about 1980s bathroom decor, my twenty year old son and reviewing partner (who generally prefers YouTube to theatre) said he really enjoyed the play and “learned a lot about what it is like to be a woman”. It was at that moment that I realised what a superb production this really is.