All Nighter

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If you have been out of your college days awhile, particularly a sleep-away college, Natalie Margolin’s All Nighter will take you back to those days as they are lived now. The five women in the play, four of them housemates, are students at a small college in Pennsylvania, in May 2014, the last week before graduation. Sitting in Johnson Ballroom, the only 24 hour space on campus, they are having their last group all-nighter of their college career. Not only do they attempt to finish their last papers and cram for their last tests, but they sort out feelings and events that have taken up their last four years. They also solve a mystery but that is the story of the play.

As performed by Kathryn Gallagher, Julia Lester, Havana Rose Liu, Alyah Chanelle Scott and Tessa Albertson (subbing for Kristine Frøseth), the cast create very different young women as the relationships between them become more in focus. By the end friendships have ended and maybe some news blossomed but there won’t be much unfinished business when they all graduate in five days.

Some of their complaints are funny: as they arrive in the ballroom, they each gripe about not being able to have their usual table on this last night and one complains she has been insulted about how she would look in orange (which later helps solve the mystery). Several of them cannot remember what happened the night before when they all got incredibly drunk though eventually the facts become clear. The relationships between them come into sharp focus the longer we spend time with them.

Kathryn Gallagher’s Jacqueline seems to be the leader or at least the one they all turn to. She appears to have started a new relationship with Claire, a freshman, only recently, though she has accepted an internship in New York for the fall.  Her roommate Tessa (played by Alyah Chanelle Scott) comes from money and likes to travel. Darcie (Tessa Albertson at the performance under review) is  set to go into Teach for America the following semester. The least focused is Lizzy (Havana Rose Liu) who is always losing things and discovers that she missed the deadline on the New York internship she wanted. It is the scattered Lizzy who has been prescribed Adderall for her ADHD but is continually sharing it with the others to help them get their work done on time.

They talk of events from over the past four years, their love lives, food addictions, other classmates, both friends and acquaintances that they see (but we don’t) in the study hall, and what they will wear to graduation. They also refer to the ghost in their house who seems to have been taking or moving things the last four years. Each of them seem to have a secret: what is in Darcie’s Arizona Iced Tea that she is always drinking, why is Lizzy continuing to hook up with Mike who she claimed assaulted her in freshman year?

Red-headed Wilma (Julia Lester), a whirlwind of energy and confusion, loud, noisy and obstreperous, arrives interrupting their seemingly quiet study hours. However, as played by Lester she is a breath of fresh air, opening up new kettles of fish, and having her own breakdown right before them, though she seems to be all caught up in her classwork. Then Tessa who has noticed that her credit card is missing earlier gets a text warning her of fraudulent charges on the card she doesn’t recognize since it went missing. By the end of the long night as the sun comes up, we and they know what has been going on all these years and who is responsible. Will they remain friends? Probably not but they will have all of their memories. By the end it is revealed that each of them has betrayed the others at one time or another.

As directed by Jaki Bradley, the acting could not be more believable as the women interact as they attempt to study, as well as reminisce about their college years. Margolin has an excellent ear for how women network with each other. The only flaw is that the language is too clean, not a single curse word of any kind, unless in Pennsylvania people are more careful of how they talk. Although all of the actresses are excellent as they go about their work, pair off and take amusing breaks, it is Lester with her flamboyant outfits and boisterous outbursts who steals the show – although one pities anyone who has to room with her Wilma or attempt to study in the same room.

Wilson Chin’s set for the corner of the study hall ballroom with its all glass walls is most convincing, as are Michelle J. Li’s bland costumes for the four roommates. Wilma’s outrageous outfits of which we get to see two are very eye-catching as they are meant to be, another one of her attempts to gain attention and maybe friendship. Andrew Diaz’s props almost steal the show with the huge amount of food the women bring to keep themselves going and the number of items that come out of their large book bags and purses.

While most of the audience will probably not have graduated in the last ten years (though you never know), the play speaks to all of us about the closeness and personal relationships of our college years. Playwright Natalie Margolin knows how to create tension from hints casually dropped and director Jaki Bradley has created a cohesive cast who could have been together the last four years. All Nighter is one of the few plays set at a college that seems to come from the author’s own firsthand experiences.

All Nighter (through May 18, 2025)

The Newman Mills Theater at The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, 511 W. 52^nd Street in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.allnighterplay.com

Running time: one hour and 50 minutes without an intermission