Low level for Shipping Dock

Maybe it’s me. Clare McIntyre’s Low Level Panic has won respectful attention from English and
Polish theater mavens as a potent drama. It also makes some lively and amusing
comments on women’s sensibilities as they resist male-dominated society’s
efforts to define them in pornographic terms. But I find the play incoherent,
annoying, and sometimes tedious. It’s being performed by Shipping Dock Theatre,
which is celebrated locally for presenting work on a high level.

            All the
action takes place in the bathroom of a London flat shared by three women, who
treat us to intimate exposure of their private lives and inner thoughts. The
play’s one harrowing moment takes place outside. A sudden, unmotivated rape is
presented with such taste and restraint that it packs a wallop more traumatic
than an explicit, melodramatic scene would inflict. But, unfortunately, that
subtly treated, ugly scene is the high point of director Barbara Biddy’s
production.

            When we see
the panicked effect that the title suggests, it is broadly played on anything
but a low level. And its point is undercut by what seems to be merely a
re-creation of behavior from before the rape. In the first scene, we hear Mary
ranting furiously about a pornographic magazine she found in their garbage bin
outside. One wonders why she brought it in and reads from it if it offends her,
rather than just leaving it in the garbage where it belongs.

            Weeks after
the rape, she resists dressing up and dolling up for a party, because doing so
might make her seem “slutty.” Her rant has the identical rhythm,
sound, and impact as in her initial scene. Only by reading the program do we
discover that Scene 1, the “pornography” scene, and Scenes 3 and 5,
before the party, take place within a short time, and that they all happen
weeks after the rape. There is no clear onstage indication that the rape scene
happened weeks before what we saw in the beginning of the play.

            Even
understanding that the rape was a flashback, and that all Mary’s irrational
expressions of genuine anguish are a result of such abuse, I think playwright
McIntyre handles the dialogue awkwardly. Mary’s loud rants about such tortures
as the sounds of neighbors fighting and making love are most unwisely
punctuated by her repetitive shouts of “Why do I have to listen to
this?” That’s what I was thinking.

            Perhaps to
combat the relatively static plot, the cast screams most of the dialogue.
Cheryl Farney (Celia) creates intriguing mystery with poorly enunciated, often
unintelligible delivery. Jessica Mack (Mary) yells her lines in unvaried
agitation. And Sara Greenhouse (Jo) shrieks hers with such abrasive consistency
that a factory whistle might have seemed a restful alternative.

            Other than
vocally, these attractive women are not without charm, and they wander in and
out of Serge Love’s huge bathroom set in effortlessly natural re-creation of
normal, “at home” behavior. One even bathes nude, and another bends
to apply make-up at the mirror before putting on her panties. All this
revelation would seem overly familiar to a sorority girl, but fraternity boys,
past and present, might sit up and take notice.

Low Level Panic,by Clare McIntyre, directed by
Barbara K. Biddy, plays at Shipping Dock Theatre, 151 St. Paul Street, through
Sunday, March 2. Performances are Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 8 p.m.,
and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tix: $16-$18. 232-2250, www.shippingdocktheatre.org.

Theater Note

Through Sunday, March 9, Studio Arena Theater in Buffalo is
presenting a first-rate production of an offbeat Canadian Classic. On the
surface, a simple, rural farm life story of friendship and caring, Michael
Healey’s The Drawer Boy is
a laugh-out-loud funny, deeply moving, and oddly profound experience in the
power of story-telling. Highly recommended. For more info, call 800-77STAGE, or
visit www.studioarena.org.

This article appears in Feb 19-25, 2003.