Theatre in Review: All Nighter (Newman Mills Theatre/Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space)Two or three minutes of All Nighter are enough to reveal playwright Natalie Margolin's blood-curdlingly accurate ear for dialogue, at least when listening in on a quartet of seniors at a small Eastern Pennsylvania college circa 2014. Housemates, all -- seemingly moving around campus en masse -- they commandeer a table in one of the school's common spaces -- not their normal table, mind you, which is a cause of some upset -- parking there until dawn, cramming for exams and grinding out papers. One suspects they're trying to pack four years of learning into one night. But, as one of them says, "Whatever! It's our last all-nighter of college! Our last academic venture!" The above language is typical: Margolin faultlessly orchestrates a parade of inanities, each comment delivered with gravity and force normally applied to immutable laws of nature. Kvelling over the dairy-free pizza that one of them, Darcie, made from scratch, housemate Lizzy exclaims, "No you didn't MAKE, You BUILT a pizza today. You BUILT a pizza! I'm so excited for you!" Unpacking a massive load of snacks meant to get them through the night, Lizzy announces, "Hummus has played a huge role in our college experience." Talking about an unfavored acquaintance, Jacqueline, the toughest of the four, says, "In the bathroom, we were washing our hands together and she made a joke about the paper towels in another clear effort to connect with me." Really, the stress troll is exhausting. Which might explain why they are walking pharmacies. Lizzy, talking about her capacious stash of Adderall, says, sadly, "I started this semester with one-hundred-fifty pills and by week two I only had seventy." They clinically dissect a friend's Focalin habit, which comes with a host of dire side effects that include psychosis and heart failure. And then there's the "Vyvance Scandal of 2011," in which an unidentified interloper got into Lizzy's bottle of that stimulant, emptying the capsules of their contents. (This event is chalked up to the ghost who, they are certain, lurks in their house.) When not high as kites they treat each new hangover as a badge of pride. And when they discover that Darcie has filled her can of Arizona iced tea with wine, their concern about possible alcoholism is tabled for a debate about the vintage: Is it an Albarino, a Riesling, or a Sauvignon Blanc? Say what you will: these young ladies have priorities. This stupefying slice of young American womanhood is realized down to the last "Omigod" by a quartet of bracing talents: Kristine Froseth as Darcie, ostensibly the most together of the group with her (unseen) boyfriend, a gig with Teach for America, and her preternatural culinary skills; Kathryn Gallagher as Jacqueline, dating a female freshman, her candor not always endearing her to others; Havana Rose Liu as Lizzy, of the multiple anxiety medications ("I have visual processing issues"), her fears rooted in a very real trauma; and Alyah Chanelle Scott as Tessa, who just might have kissed Jacqueline's girlfriend the night before and wants the incident buried ASAP. Passing through, stealing focus, and landing gigantic laughs is Julia Lester as Wilma, their favorite hanger-on, a bizarre, overemotive art student; appearing in torn denim shorts, hot pink stockings, and hair that Mrs. Lovett would find ratty, she unveils a self-portrait that renders her as a dead ringer for Hillary Clinton. "I just want to be a painter. And a Democrat," she sobs. Director Jaki Bradley expertly manages the script's rapid-fire comedy while skillfully letting darker tones emerge. Indeed, hidden fault lines among these alleged BFFs increasingly come to light, including two incidents of sexual assault that nobody wants to talk about. And wait for the moment when stray facts about things going missing -- including a couple of Adderall pills and Tessa's credit cards -- come together in a knockout of a twist; something is terribly wrong with one of them and it casts their four-way comradeship in a starkly revealing light. Bradley punctuates the dialogue with precisely rendered bits of business, including amusingly sped-up passages showing everyone frantically hitting the books and a sequence detailing their assault on their favorite table. Wilson Chin's vast, all-enveloping set, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, is a textbook example of a campus common space. Ben Stanton's lighting includes a saturated color wash for a rock-out moment to "Wrecking Ball" and the slow approach of dawn. Each of Michelle J. Li's costumes is a well-considered character study. MJ Dogg's sound design includes ambient voices from elsewhere in the room, rendered with spatial accuracy; he also provides a playlist of pop tunes like "Die Young" by Kesha. All Nighter is one of the best surprises of the winter season, the debut of a sassy, perceptive new voice aided by a gaggle of fresh talents. (Only Lester, who can land an enormous laugh by simply saying, "These are amazing chips," counts as a familiar face.) Without overselling the material, Margolin makes blindingly clear that, for these gals, maturity wasn't part of the curriculum. One shudders to consider how representative of their generation they might be. Lizzy thoughtfully wonders, "If years from now. If someone asks us about college and asks us about our house, I wonder what story each of us would tell." Hard to say, but the story Margolin tells is a corker. --David Barbour 
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