Low- Level Panic
‘Low-level Panic’ was written by Clare McIntyre and it was first performed at the Royal
Court Theatre, London, in association with the Women’s Playhouse Trust on 11 February
1988, winning the Samuel Beckett Award the following year.
The Text
Along the play there are several characters, three in total.
Jo is one of the three main characters in Low Level Panic. At the beginning, she gives the
impression of a strong person. However, as the play goes on, she is not but insecure on her
body and her image. She only thinks about possible relationships with men. Always, in those
fantasies she has, the reader can find her idelizing herself physically speaking and giving to
her partner a kind of behavior he is going to like the most.
Mary is one of the three main characters of Low level Panic. One of the facts that the reader
knows about her is how disgusted she is with women. It happens after she finds a
pornographic magazine and she tells Jo how awful she feels about it and the depiction she has
towards women.
Celia is the most conservative character on the play. The reader or the spectator can notice
how meticulously she organises everything before she takes a bath. From these kind of acts,
we can say that Celia has some obsessive-compulsive disorder. She is the only woman of
three who, along the play, has an actual relationship with a man, even though that person is
never seen.
The plot of ‘Low level panic’ could be summarized as followed:
