Post by mallardo on Feb 26, 2017 13:56:30 GMT
I'm a sucker for plumbing onstage so I was bound to like the new production of Low Level Panic at the Orange Tree, in Richmond, which features a functioning bathtub, sink and toilet. The toilet, note, is used for flushing cigarette butts only. They're all needed because the entire play is set in the bathroom of a flat shared by three 20-something women in London in 1988, when Clare McIntyre wrote it and saw it premier at the Royal Court. There seems not to have been many productions since and one has to wonder why. It's a wonderful little slice of life drama that, judging by the constant nods and smiles from the women in the audience, seems to perfectly reflect their own experiences.
What do women talk about when no men are present? Well, they talk about men, for one thing, and not in very flattering terms. And they talk about insecurities and body issues and porn and a lot of it is light-hearted and funny - but a lot of it is serious stuff. One of the women has been sexually assaulted and wants to blame herself because she was wearing a skirt while riding her bike. Now she's on her way to a party and is afraid to wear a new dress that might be too clingy and provocative. Every once in a while the banter stops and the lighting changes and one of the women goes into a private monologue; a sexual fantasy in one case, a disturbing dream that supports real life terrors in another. These set pieces are beautifully written and played, as is everything else.
The three actresses - Katherine Pearce, Sophie Melville and Samantha Pearl - are amazing, so easy and natural and funny and, above all, true. The action, such as it is, flows at the speed of life. There is a structure, but not much. The play opens and closes in the middle of conversations, as if we have been given access to a random segment of time in the lives of these women.
As I noted, the audience, 75% women, ate it up. For myself, as a guy who has spent a lifetime being baffled, intimidated, fascinated and generally awed by the females of the species who, from my earliest days, have seemed to be so much wiser and more attuned to the nuances of life than I, it was a genuine learning experience. Brava to the cast, to director Chelsea Walker and to Clare McIntyre who, sadly, died of multiple sclerosis in 2009 at the age of 57. I'm pretty sure she would have loved this production - perhaps, especially, the plumbing.
