**All Nighter
Interpersonal relationships dominate the curriculum
Alyah Chanelle Scott, Kathryn Gallagher, Julia Lester, Havana Rose Liu, Alyah Chanelle Scott. Photo: Evan Zimmerman for Murphy Made
Set in 2014, this all-female play is geared to a very specific audience — young women in their twenties — and if you don’t fit that demographic, there’s little to sustain interest.
Four college seniors (housemates) spend the night in a study hall, grinding out their final assignments. Playwright Natalie Margolin sketches a slight variegation of types: over-accommodating scholarship student (Kristine Frøseth), minorly neurodiverse people-pleaser (Havana Rose Liu), soignée over-achiever (Alyah Chanelle Scott), and a non-glam budding lesbian (Kathryn Gallagher).
In addition, one interloper appears intermittently, intent on stealing the show — character and performer alike. Wilma (Julia Lester) is an outlier determined to chivvy her way into the clique. Loud, outlandishly dressed (costumes by Michael J. Li), doggedly eccentric, flamboyantly dramatic, Wilma is stock character, a buffona resurrected whole from the commedia era. Your tolerance may be tested.
That’s pretty much it: one long feed of exposition until the final fifteen minutes, when questions surrounding a stolen credit card — the equivalent of Chekhov’s gun — engender a bit of actual drama.
If this is your cup of Sauvignon “iced tea,” you’ll be rapt. Otherwise, the play is a low-on-the-list elective, offering little by way of extra credit.
MCC Theater Space to May 18