Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Women on the verge: Caitlin Saylor Stephens’ FIVE MODELS IN RUINS, 1981 and Natalie Margolin’s ALL NIGHTER

• By drediman
• May 14, 2025
• No Comments

The young women in Kimberly Belflower’s terrific John Proctor Is the Villain aren’t the only women going through onstage breakdowns. This week, I was able to catch two Off-Broadway plays whose characters also brought to mind the title of the Pedro Almodóvar’s cult classic film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Read on to see how they do.

FIVE MODELS IN RUINS, 1981
Lincoln Center Theater at the Claire Tow Theater
Through June 1

Currently at the Claire Tow Theater, you’ll find Lincoln Center Theater’s LCT3 production of Caitlin Saylor Stephens’ aptly titled new play Five Models in Ruins, 1981 (RECOMMENDED). A sort of commentary on the price of making art, particularly as a woman in a cutthroat world, the work chronicles a photoshoot from hell, in which a fashion photographer named Roberta is given the opportunity to vie to shoot for the cover of Vogue. Taking place in a crumbling English manor soon after Princess Diana’s wedding in 1981, Roberta gathers five models to capture them in Diana’s rejected wedding gowns against the fading romantic backdrop of the country estate. Over the course of the play, both Roberta and her models are put through the wringer as everything that could go wrong does go wrong. Director Morgan Green’s staging beautifully channels the surreal quality of Stephens’ play (think Ionesco), going along with its meandering dreamlike quality, even if ultimately the whole thing feels more like an exercise in stylized posturing rather than true existential drama. Suffice to say, the production has been designed to the hilt, unfolding on Afsoon Pajoufar’s chicly decrepit set and featuring period perfect costumes by Vasilija Zivanic. As Roberta, the great Elizabeth Marvel gives a fascinating internalized performance, prowling the stage with a palpable sense of desperation. Then you have the five models (or more precisely, four models and a hair/makeup artist turned makeshift model), who are brought to satirically vivid life by a quintet of game actresses — all drop dead gorgeous — who progressively get more viscious and frustrated as the shoot slowly implodes.

ALL NIGHTER
The Newman Mills Theater at the Robert Wilson MCC Theater Space
Through May 18

Then over at the Robert Wilson MCC Theater Space in Hell’s Kitchen, you’ll find Natalie Margolin’s new play All Nighter (RECOMMENDED) finishing up its successful limited Off-Broadway run. Set in an undisclosed college, the play depicts five hung over college housemates — all young women on the verge of graduating — spending their last all-nighter at the library writing papers, prepping for final examinations, and of course shooting the breeze. What starts off as a typical study session turns into a night of reckoning during which friendships are tested to the brink of trust and tolerance, which is made all the more strenuous with the addition of the stress of schoolwork, raging hormones, and the anxieties of moving on with their lives in the “real world”. Through various combinations of interactions between Margolin’s characters, flaws and vulnerabilities (and delusions) gradually make themselves apparent and revelations are to be had, especially with more than the typical dosages of Adderall and alcohol thrown into the mix. Although the cumulative effect is little more than a typical if thoughtful study of the dynamics of friendships among women and entertaining college melodrama, the resulting theatrical experience is nothing less than engaging, thanks to a quintet of fantastic performances — Isa Briones, Kathryn Gallaher, Julia Lester (a scene-stealer, as always), AnnaSophia Robb, and Alyah Chanelle Scott all give distinctive, convincing performances — and director Jaki Bradley’s polished and well-paced production.