Broadway’s “The Hills of California” Climbs Up Some Dynamic Stairs Brilliantly – front mezz junkies, Theater News

The Broadway Theatre Review: The Hills of California

By Ross

She moves through the curtained doorway and into the room as the music envelopes the space and the piano keys are fine-tuning us into the room. Not down the stairs like she did when I saw this play, The Hills of California, written with clever purpose by Jez Butterworth (The Ferryman), earlier this year in the West End of London. And that’s not the only change made for this Broadway transfer. This one feels inconsequential, as the entrance draws us in with the sounds of waves and seagulls. But the others, especially the later unravelings are something profound and exciting, elevating the engagement as it lifts us up and into the state of California and its grand expansive shoreline.

The stifled energy and look of the space we are taking in on the stage of the Broadhurst Theatre couldn’t be further removed. We lean in with curiosity, understanding that it’s the summer of 1976, and the air hangs heavy in this dark room, and not only because of the heat. An unseen mother lays upstairs, slowly but meticulously dying of cancer, as one of her daughters, the meek-looking Jill, played meticulously well by Helena Wilson (Bridge Theatre’s White Noise), shyly smokes a cigarette in the corner like a naughty librarian. Each drag is taken with some sort of desperation laced with anxiety, before quickly snuffing it out when she hears someone coming down the stairs. “Momma?” she asks in what feels like a terrified whisper, as it seems she must hide the damning evidence before whoever gets to the bottom of those long stairs. But it’s only the nurse, played compassionately solid by Ta’Rea Campbell (Broadway’s Hamilton), who enters the space. She’s here not to criticize or discipline, but to offer care and an unorthodox way forward out of the heaviness felt in that thick air.

It’s a tender, thoughtful introduction, slowly descending into a turbulent sea of grief and explosive family dynamics, as sisters reunite in this Blackpool guest house where they all grew up and have since grown apart. They have gathered, one by one, to say their goodbyes to a mother who clearly had a great impact. The guesthouse has been inaptly named Seaview, although it bears no resemblance to what can be seen from any of the numerous rooms’ windows. “Poetic license“, they say with clever emphasis, unfolding an idea worthy of further exploration by the great Butterworth whose play, Jerusalem, is often cited as one of the best plays of the century. Grand aspirations and the reality of the world live side by side in those stately named rooms that echo up high into the dark air, lining the hallways and staircases with dreams and clandestine interactions that seem to go on forever, maybe leading all the way up to heaven. Or just to a very hot, steamy, and hellish Alaska.

With Butterworth gloriously reuniting with the esteemed director, Sam Mendes (Broadway/West End’s The Lehman Trilogy), The Hills of California finds compelling weight and fascinating rhythm in this coming together flown over after a triumphant run in the West End. The idea set forth by the nurse is contemplated, but pushed aside by the one child who has stayed put, adding further weight to the already heavy waiting game. Jill decides to hold off deciding until all her sisters arrive. Two of the four siblings turn up almost immediately, entering the public room of the guesthouse carrying the hot exasperated energy of a difficult journey on their shoulders. Each brings a unique framework and platform that adds tension and electricity to the already heated room, along with a variety of companions that elevate and expand their already well-formed characterizations.

One sister, the unseen Joan, who flew off to California years and years ago, remains unaccounted for, lost in plane delays and unanswered letters. Jill, the one who stayed, maybe because she “can’t find the door,” is certain she will arrive as promised. The other two, the sharp-tongued and profoundly resentful Gloria, played to spectacular fashion by Leanne Best (Donmar’s Sweat), and the more tender and endearing, but breathlessly anxious Ruby, played beautifully by Ophelia Lovibond (Sheffield Crucible’s The Effect), are actively doubtful. but from very different angles.

Gloria, the spare and second oldest, is one of the more captivating of Butterworth’s creations, at least for the moment, with Butterworth giving her line after line edged with jealousy and filled to overheating with anger, resentment, and frustration, all of which she takes out, somewhat compellingly on her husband, Bill, played by the very astute newcomer to the play, Richard Short (HBO’s “Vinyl“) and their two kids, played by Nancy Allsop [who also played the young Gloria] (Hampstead’s The Fever Syndrome) and Liam Bixby (Gate’s’s THISISPOPBABY). Dennis, the husband of Ruby, played deliciously by Bryan Dick (NT’s All of Us), floats in and out in a very different ice-creamed haze, giving a disconnected but active energy to their stalled and stale relationship. The two men carry little weight in this family’s hostile yet somehow compassionate dynamic, setting up a framework of unfixable understanding. But the two are given more to do later on in different garbs and a surprising turning time frame.

They wait, in the heat and the tight tension, squabbling and singing as a damaged unit that still cares, letting hints of problematic engagements linger in the hot humid air without really unpacking them for us, just yet. The crumbling of historic Blackpool, a once proud summer resort town in England, is referenced, layering its tragedy on the backs of this family and the guest house they once called home. Then, suddenly, a rotation occurs, one that I didn’t see coming. The staircase swings us back in time, returning us to the 1950s, and to an optimistic moment in these sisters’ lives before the roots of resentment and friction became wrapped in the framework of the idolized Andrews Sisters. “A piano must be played“, we are told, and in that compelling rewinding, we are given a detailed seaview look through the drawn curtain that separates family from guest. We see their determined mother, Veronica, played fearlessly and ferociously by the very great and dynamic Laura Donnelly (Trafalgar Studios’ The Wasp; Broadway’s The Ferryman), navigating and contemplating how to overcome the hurdles before them. This woman will go to almost any lengths to climb over and create something for her girls, and that’s not the only sly dual slant to Donnelly’s exacting performance.

The paralleling is unpacked in style, thanks to the claustrophobically illuminating work of set and costume designer Rob Howell (Old Vic/Broadway’s A Christmas Carol) with meticulous lighting by Natasha Chivers (West End/Broadway’s Prima Facie) and choreography by Ellen Kane (NT’s Dear England), ushering forth, for inspection, the daughters as young girls. Played beautifully by Allsop doing double duty as young Gloria, Sophia Ally as young Ruby, Lara McDonnell as young Joan, Nicola Turner as young Jill (all coming in from the West End production), the four-girl act is being drilled and trained to become a credible sisters-singing group by their forceful and focused mother. Donnelly’s Veronica is a fantastically detailed and upright creation, with nuances that never feel trite or overplayed. Assisted by the gentle Joe Fogg, the piano man, played with care by Richard Lumsden (Kiln’s White Teeth), the sisters practice with a focused intent to become the Webb Sisters, a musical act that Veronica hopes will give her girls the escape she wants for them. Veronica can see this slim opportunity for freedom in her head, mainly for them, imagining great things far and away from her, and will hold tight to her boundaries and structures in order to help them get out. 

The formulation is fascinating, balancing both the past and the present in a compelling rotated style that elevates and refocuses the attitudes and understanding we have for these adult sisters. But the tension around the yet-to-arrive Joan lingers heavy in the air. Will she come back to this run-down Sea View Guest House and Spa, haunted by a mother’s bittersweet dreams for her daughters, or will she remain in the place she ran away to, living a life these other sisters can only fantasize about? And what, or more importantly, why was Joan escaping, if that was really the cause for her flight to California? Was it their mother? Or something quite different? These are the questions that crackle inside the first two of three Acts of this complex long but delicious play that never feels overwhelming. And when a big-time American agent comes into town, hustled into that 1950s kitchen by one of Butterworth’s other clever creations, the charming but cash-strapped Jack Larkin (Bryan Dick), an unfolding happens in both time frames that keep this jukebox playing, feeding each other with all the details we need, and giving us another Donnelly framing to fascinatingly lean in to.

It’s a bit of a high-cost family crisis that plays out in the past with the mother and sister Joan taking center stage. It sizzles with unspoken complexities that give captivating side angles to engage with. It’s sung out in one of the rooms upstairs, and folded together with a Godot-like framework that keeps us guessing. When these adult sisters engage, fighting and connecting with one another, the play finds pain and compassion living and breathing inside of hostilities, and when the girls are singing with one another, thanks to the fine work by composer and sound designer/arranger Nick Powell (West End/Broadway’s The Lehman Trilogy) with musical supervision by co-arranger Candida Caldicot (Barbican’s A Strange Loop), the unity feels authentic and completely satisfying, even in the kind, but severe way, they are mothered and pushed to survive, with Joan being the standout in more ways than just one time period.

With the cancer-ridden mother dying upstairs, and the ‘70s period drama mashed together with the ‘50s formula downstairs, The Hills of California keeps its eyes on the central staircase prize and finds power in the historical face-to-face unfolding plot. “If, if, if,” I’m being a bit careful not to give away the surprises of Act Three, you’ll have to forgive me, but when the jutebox plays loud, Saint Joan is not too far away, in framings that are completely well-written and engaging, more so now than when I saw it in London. Inside the West End production, the surprising formula, left out on the patio, felt a bit flat and undercooked in their harmonies and unraveling. Instead, altered and refocused, “hip as f*ck” Butterworth goes for something far more powerfully verbal and more simply as engaging as Ruby’s panic attack, while not falling into overly sentimental family dynamics. The more inward-looking success of it all lies firmly in the hands of these talented actors, mostly the women who find epic effervescence and captivating engagement in both their songs and their squabbles. It lives boldly in its acts of grief, redemption, and forgiveness, giving ample angles to connect to these disappointed women. It might not exactly climb the stairs up to the high levels of Butterworth’s other plays, like The Ferryman or the celebrated Jerusalem, but it makes up in performances that are difficult to shake off. Broadway is fortunate to be given the opportunity to take in the magnificent and poetic Seaview, and not sent the far way around to see what happens behind that familial curtain, a dynamic that exists from and inside The Hills of California, even if we can’t see the turbulent water through the emotional trees and parking lots.