Low Level Panic. Clare McIntyre. 1988. Carlos Catalán Ruz
This play has been written in prose and is formed by eight different scenes. The language used
is a colloquial one, representing the way teenagers and young people in general speak. This
play does not censor anything and has no problem when talking about things that might be
considered taboos. The three characters openly talk about matters such as sex, rape, and
masturbation.
The play takes place inside the girls’ bathroom, although two of the eight scenes take
place in the streets. When the scene changes the only scenery that variates is the light. When
they are in the bathroom there is a window, a mirror, a bath, an armchair, and the door. When
one of the girls, Mary, is raped, we don’t see the men that raped her, but we can hear their
voices.
The plot of the play is about three girls that happen to live together. The play focuses
on the time they spend inside the bathroom. Although the three of them are good friends,
Mary and Jo have a closer friendship between them than with Celia. Jo talks about
pornography while Mary talks about how she was raped, and the way women are sexualized
by men. Celia talks but she is more like a secondary character.
Jo is the same age as Mary. She is always thinking about her body and keeps having
sexual fantasies. Although it may look like the most stable of the three friends, later on we find
out that she has also been raped. Mary, on the other hand, is way more thoughtful than her
friends and asks herself why men always sexualize women and treat them as mere sexual
objects. She has been raped too, by two men. Celia is the oldest one of the friends. She has an
obsession with keeping things tidy. At the end of the play, she has a formal relationship.
I really enjoyed the play and the topics it touched because although the play is from
1988, society has not changed a bit. Women still have the same problems as before: men. They
are still sexualized by society and diminished to mere sexual objects. I like the fact that they
use the bathroom to talk about these things, because it is like their little safe space where they
feel safe and can have some privacy.
