Low Level Panic (KXT on Broadway) ★★★1/2

Written by Clare McIntyre. KXT on Broadway. 7 – 17 Feb, 2024.

Three young women in a 90’s house-share trying to find love, or at least good sex, feels like the premise for an easy comedy, but Clare McIntyre’s Low Level Panic is a subtle exposé of the everyday impact of a male dominated culture over the women trying to navigate it.

Jo (Charlotte de Wit) is taking a luxurious bath, daydreaming a sexual fantasy. The kind of sex she’d be having if she was 6 inches taller and not as fat. Mary (Marigold Pazar) is flicking through a discarded issue of Playboy, disgusted and fascinated at the same time. While Celia (Megan Kennedy) meticulously runs through her skin care routine. Outside, one of their deck chairs is on fire. As they prepare to go to a party together, they discuss men, sex, relationships and desire – each of them gripped by a sense of unease and desperation manifesting in different ways. 

McIntyre’s script is sharp in its characterisations of these three women. It’s clear Jo and Mary find Celia’s uptight nature as annoying as she finds their slovenly ways frustrating. But as much as there is a level of friction building between them there is the solidarity of three people thrown together by convenience. Each of them is brittle to differing degrees, and it plays out in different ways.

Jo is obsessed with staring at herself in the mirror, or weighing herself, trying to be the sexy woman that the culture tells her she has to be to be desirable. She dreams of men wanting to use her for sex. Mary, who has the willowy figure Jo craves, is withdrawn and shy. A victim of sexual assault she loathes male attention. Celia has a strict routine and upbeat attitude that thinly masks her own fears. 

This cast inhabited their roles so completely it was easy to step into the world of Low Level Panic and go on the journey with them all. Aided by an excellent and effective set (by De Wit, who is also a producer on the show), these women are likeable and fun to be around for all their foibles. Director Maike Strichow gives the show a naturalistic tone which works well selling the everyday trauma of the characters. A flashback to Mary’s past hits hard thanks to good lighting design by Lyndon Buckley.

However as the show progresses the naturalistic style works against the pacing, it never quite delivers the emotional highs and lows needed to sustain itself. Much like the unnerving sense of fear these women face, there is steady, low level tension that can’t find a suitably cathartic release.

It’s almost depressing how the issues of the play are still relevant today, 25 years after it was first written. In a world where women are expected to tolerate daily acts of abuse while being told they are never good enough (cue the “Barbie speech”), the message of Low Level Panic is that things may be tough but you are not alone.