Review: Five Models in Ruins, 1981, Voguing Into the Abyss

The title of Caitlin Saylor Stephens’s new comedy at LCT3 is Five Models in Ruins, 1981. But there are only four, at first: veteran Alex (Britne Oldford), reigning “it” girl Chrissy (Stella Everett), jaded Tatiana (Maia Novi), and fresh-faced Grace (Sarah Marie Rodriguez). In the wake of Charles and Diana’s Royal wedding, fashion photographer Roberta (Elizabeth Marvel) has brought them to a dilapidated manor house in Surrey for what is meant to be the greatest shoot of her 25-year career. The women will model the designer wedding gowns Di rejected for the cover of Vogue.

Not only is the fifth model missing, so is hair and makeup artist Sandy (Madeline Wise). There is no running water, a thunderstorm is about to unload onto the leaky roof, and the craft services table consists of a six-pack of Tab and cigarettes. Most perilous of all, Roberta is heartbroken, her mind inconveniently preoccupied with the man that got away right as she is tasked with taking stylish snaps of wedding dresses that were vetoed by a princess. But at the brutal intersection of fashion and media, you either deliver or get flattened.

Like Stephens’s earlier play, Modern Swimwear, Five Models offers an up-close-and-personal look at the survival strategies of women working in a highly competitive field. For Alex that means boundaries. She refuses to do “floor work” (that’s any picture that requires her to lie on the floor) and while the others flip through gossip rags, she reads a thick volume of Kant. Oldford exudes the no-nonsense poise of an old pro who would rather be doing something else but is too afraid to let go.

As Chrissy, Everett affects a mean girl posture that only barely masks her character’s deep insecurity. Although they were all born within a decade of one another, Rodriguez’s Grace seems much younger than all of them. Is she exhibiting the enthusiasm of a first-timer, or the delirium of someone who hasn’t consumed a decent meal in weeks? Novi’s Slavic deadpan proves the perfect choice for Tatiana; she regularly gets the biggest laughs from the darkest lines—an inadequate consolation for a woman who got into this business entirely too young.

Male predation, so often clumsily foregrounded in post-MeToo drama, menacingly hums in the background as the women trade war stories. A photographer who tries to fuck you? That’s to be expected. Standing for hours in poses that would be considered “cruel and unusual” by a court? It’s a testament to one’s professionalism. When Sandy finally does show, after a harrowing journey that involved a quick escape from a moving car, she recounts the whole story as if she were discussing a frustrating trip to the DMV (Wise brilliantly wrings the laughs out of this incredibly dark monologue). No one offers to call the cops. Instead, they turn on the radio and get to work, which feels sadly truthful.

Playing the oldest and most experienced woman in the group, Marvel projects an air of authority that itself seeks to reproduce the male gaze (Vasilija Zivanic costumes her in a tie and vest, her severe asymmetrical haircut threatening to cut a bitch). “Sometimes it seems men have taught me everything I know,” she says mournfully, silently acknowledging that she cannot change the past, but might be able to make the present a little better for a newcomer like Grace.

Five Models is not the kind of play that underlines its thesis, nor thankfully does it seem to have one. But moments of profundity blossom in the magnificent shade the women hurl across the dressing room and in the silence as Roberta sets up her equipment.

Director Morgan Green stages a visually arresting production on Afsoon Pajoufar’s crumbling palace of a set, featuring peeling wallpaper and a chandelier crashed to the floor. It all looks like an editorial photoshoot, although I was confused by the rules of the space, which features two distinct rooms. They are mutually accessible by an upstage hallway early in the play; but by the end, the women appear to be walking through walls, a magical feat for even the very thin.

Cha See’s lighting is stunning, conjuring a rainstorm in conjunction with Kathy Ruvuna’s sound. And Zivanic further impresses with a series of wedding gowns modeled on the work of real fashion designers like Givenchy and Ralph Lauren. This is some of the most expensive, coveted couture on the planet, and Alex will wear it as she relieves her bladder in the bushes outside the dressing room.

More than just a showcase for period fashion and timeless quips about bulimia, Five Models in Ruins, 1981 is a tribute to the women who sacrifice their youth and physical wellbeing to create something beautiful, something all too easily crushed like a flower in a book by some male gatekeeper. Women working in all creative fields, especially the theater, will certainly appreciate that.