This November, Jez Butterworth’s “The Hills of California” finally lives up to its namesake at the Roda Theatre in Berkeley, California. Directed by Loretta Greco and brought to life by the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the play flips between the present 1970s and four sisters’ childhood in the 1950s, unfolding a poignant story that examines freedom, trauma and family.
The four British sisters — Joan (Allison Jean White), Gloria (Amanda Kristin Nichols), Ruby (Aimee Doherty) and Jillian (Karen Killeen) — reunite at their childhood home, the Sea View Guest House, to bid farewell to their dying mother. As each of them arrives, it is clear that their lives and sisterly bonds have changed drastically.
In the ’50s, the girls strive and suffer under their ferocious mother Veronica Webb’s (Allison Jean White) dream for them to become the next Andrews Sisters. “A song is a place to be,” she drills, determined to prepare them to soar with their music. Each night, they practice in the kitchen of the guest house, singing close-harmony swing songs such as the titular “The Hills of California” by Johnny Mercer.
“The hills of California will give you a start,” the Webb sisters chorus, their pipes splitting the melody four ways.
The play itself gave me “a start” with its amazing set and surprising vulnerability. The first time the three-story, dollhouse-like set rotated around to reveal the backside of the sisters’ childhood guesthouse, there was an audible gasp in the audience. As time moved from present to past, the pieces of the story slid into place, the strong women of the ’70s blending with their inner children to heal their adolescent traumas. The show’s construction was ruthlessly realistic in its harrowing commentary on the music industry, yet delightful because of its warm familial moments and layered harmonies.
The Webb sisters sing of hope and the American Dream, an ideal that Veronica is adamant she provides her daughters with. The rooms in her guest house are named after U.S. states, representing her determination to will things into being, however farfetched they seem. As a single mother in the 1950s, she sees music as the ticket to freedom for her four daughters. She runs a tight ship in her kitchen while wrestling with the little power she has to ensure her daughters’ financial and social freedom.
“I guess I better warn ya, ‘cause you’ll lose you heart,” the sisters drawl playfully.
Although sisters, each of them experience childhood differently, broadening the gap between them as they grow up. Their dissimilarity shows up in their grieving styles and livelihoods, with Jillian as an anxious recluse, Ruby a faded star, Gloria an angry mother and Joan an American mystery — whose entrance, by the way, is everything you would dream of ’70s Californian glamour. The eldest two, Joan and Gloria, particularly illuminate the pitfalls of Veronica’s desperation. Wildly different and ultimately unreconciled, they both grapple with the trauma of their mother’s complicated love, culminating in a raw argument during the last minutes of Veronica’s life. The actresses flip flop between tender and hard hearts during the sisterly s—show: accusations flying, tears streaming and women wailing.
Butterworth takes his time — two hours and 40 minutes, to be precise — to provide a full psychoanalysis of these characters. I would’ve loved to see an even more holistic picture of Jillian and Ruby as individuals.
“You’ll settle down forever and never stray from the view,” the song continues.
Right before the play ended, the sisters came together to sing “Dream a Little Dream of Me” by Ozzie Nelson. As the lights gradually dimmed, the women’s mouths stopped moving, yet their voices still rang. I could’ve sworn that I heard their mother upstairs or their younger selves on the other side of the guest house singing. “The Hills of California” is a sensitive story of a family working through hope, trauma and grief together.
Ultimately, the play is about the failure of an American Dream and its divisive yet uniting consequences. Here in the hills of California, that hits especially close to home.
“The hills of Califoni-a are waiting for you.”