Issues That Are Not On Australian Stages Enough

British playwright Clare McIntyre's Low Level Panic takes place over 24 hours in a sharehouse bathroom in 1980s Great Britain. Its adaptation for Australian audiences at Old Fitz Theatre updates the text so that it's "as if it were written yesterday in Sydney, Australia", according to Kate Skinner, who plays Mary. The role of Mary is one of three, the play focusing on three housemates, all women, as they move in and outside of the bathroom, "the meeting point of the household". 

"They are all grappling with their own issues, be they body issues, self-image, violence towards women, pornography, the lot," says Skinner. "They're all at different points of growth I suppose, and accepting, and choosing what they're going to do with this world that they find themselves in."

"They're all at different points of growth I suppose, and accepting, and choosing what they're going to do with this world."

The play explored topical subject matter back when it was first performed in 1988, from sexual assault and pornography, to women's relationships with their sexual fantasies, bodies and each other — issues still salient for today's audiences.  "This play is really fantastic because it's giving us a chance to explore issues that I don't think are on Australian stages enough," says Skinner. "And in particular, the idea of how we as women see ourselves and see each other, which is very much the way the play is written. But working with Justin Martin, the director on this, he's got a really interesting idea about how to combine that with what he calls the male gaze — how men see women — and the way that those different gazes fit together."

Feminist film critic Laura Mulvey coined the term the 'male gaze' in 1975, to describe the way women — and the world at large — were depicted in the arts from a masculine perspective, and according to male attitudes. That McIntyre's award-winning play dared explore women's lives through a markedly feminine lens was part of its original transgression, the work widely labeled as feminist. Martin, this production's director, first imposed the male gaze on the play in 2013 at Galway Theatre Festival in Ireland, introducing a chorus of men acting like a "zoom lens", directing the audience's attention.

Skinner defends the choice of a male as director: "[Martin]'s extremely passionate about what the play is saying without enforcing his — which can only be a male — view on top of it."

Skinner hopes the play will be a part of an ongoing conversation about gender equality and stories we are telling in the Sydney arts community. "I think that we're at a really interesting time with theatre in Sydney at the moment where there's been quite a large call to arms from all of the major theatre companies really pushing for more female stories, more female storytellers. And the industry is responding really positively which is great."

And the production is also expected to tap into issues in wider society, evolving and changing during its run: "We're talking about a time where every day there's a new domestic violence attack or a new assault on another woman — and that's just the stuff that makes it to the media. Female body issues are rife. It's a real talking point at the moment, so I think this play is going to be a great playground to explore a lot of those issues and give women a voice."