Five Models in Ruins, 1981 Off-Broadway Reviews

A situation that does not develop its promise significantly, Five Models in Ruins, 1981 features plenty of period name-checking (Basquiat, Ungaro, Prince, Roxy Music, Parker-Bowles, “some girl named Madonna?” et alia), a dance party, a thunderstorm, and a protracted scene of caterwauling misery meant to be cathartic—and possibly even comical—but which mostly appears horrifying. It is difficult, frankly, to determine the author’s intentions because these sequences, the often terse, sporadically amusing conversations and several scenes of parallel action are poorly staged and erratically paced by Morgan Green, the director.

Waiting to see what develops goes with the art of photography — and theatre. But audiences anticipating something persuasive or perceptive to surface in Five Models in Ruins, 1981 will be kept waiting. Insights stay elusive in this uneventful fashion-forward play that’s not sharp or funny enough to snap as satire or deep enough, despite 11th-hour primal howling, to click as drama.

While the cast delivers these lines at a rapid clip under Morgan Green’s direction, Five Models seems content to skim the surface of fashion-world satire without going either very deep or broad — or committing to whether it wants to be a drama or a comedy. One moment, Roberta is earnestly teaching Grace how to adjust the aperture of the lens to achieve a perfect balance between light and shadow. The next, Tatiana is revealing that a photographer raped her at age 14 and Alex describes a plane crash in the Brazilian rain forest that forced her “to survive off the condensation of airplane windows” until the shoot itself was canceled because of a local coup.

While it might take some viewers a little time to realize the double meaning of the title of Caitlin Saylor Stephens’ new play, “Five Models in Ruins, 1981,” now premiering at Lincoln Center Theater under the focused direction of Morgan Green, other audience members may need to ruminate on this sharply funny and deeply disturbing play to understand it’s designed as both an over-the-top satire of the fashion industry and a damning exploration of a male-dominated culture (that still exists five decades later) that treats women as objects rather than people.