There’s dramatic gold in Berkeley Rep’s ‘Hills of California’
Amanda Kristin Nichols is Gloria, Karen Killeen is Jillian and Aimee Doherty is Ruby in Jez Butterworth’s The Hills of California, a co-production with The Huntington at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre through Dec. 7. Photo by Liza Voll
Is it possible for one fateful day to define an entire family? Playwright Jez Butterworth, the British scribe behind hits like Jerusalem and The Ferryman, believes it is. He proves his theorem in the slow-to-boil The Hills of California, now at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre in a co-production with Bostons’s The Huntington.
We first encounter the Webb sisters in the scorching, drought-plagued summer of 1976 in Blackpool, a seaside English resort town that has always felt like it aspired to Vegas but could barely cough up the charm of Atlantic City. Jillian (Karen Killeen) has never left home, so she became the default caregiver of their mother, who is upstairs in what was once described (but never actually was) the family’s “luxury” resort, living out her last, cancer-plagued days.
Out-of-town sister Ruby (Aimee Doherty) arrives with her tippling husband who disappears for most of the play, while Gloria (Amanda Kristin Nichols), also exhausted from a long, hot drive across England, shows up with her husband and two beleaguered adolescent children. It’s quickly clear that these sisters haven’t been together in a good, long time, and we’re eventually going to find out why. We’ll also discover why the fourth sister, Joan, the eldest, isn’t exactly rushing from California to her dying mother’s side.
Allison Jean White is matriarch Veronica Webb, who believes her daughters are the next Andrews Sisters. Photo by Liza Voll
But first we have to flash back about 20 years to meet matriarch Veronica Webb (Allison Jean White) in all her glory. She’s the kind of pushy, deluded stage mother who makes Mama Rose looke like Mamma Mia. She’s convinced that her four daughters (played in their younger years by Chloé Kolbenheyer, Meghan Carey, Nicole Mulready and Kate Fitzgerald) are going to find fame and fortune as the next iteration of the Andrews Sisters. Problem is, in a pop music world dominated by an emerging Elvis Presley (whom Veronica has somehow never even heard of), no one gives whit about “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” or any of that old stuff.
There’s a dangerous desperation to Veronica that fuels her delusion. She’s a single woman raising four daughters in a second-rate hotel called the Sea View where the sea isn’t remotely visible. Does she really think her girls, who can sing and dance enthusiastically, are her ticket out? She probably senses there isn’t really another option.
She runs out of options on that fateful day, the day that changed everything and has decades-long repercussions for every member of the Webb family. As the time periods flip back and forth from the ‘70s to the ‘50s, the towering Sea View set by Andrew Boyce and Se Hyun Oh, spins around like a slow-motion tornado of time wreaking emotional havoc with every turn.
The cast of Jez Butterworth’s The Hills of California at Berkeley Repertory Theatre includes (from left) Mike Masters as Joe, Nicole Mulready as Young Jillian, Meghan Carey as Young Gloria and Chloé Kolbenheyer as Young Ruby. Photo by Liza Voll
Director Loretta Greco, former artistic director of San Francisco’s Magic Theatre, allows the slow burn exposition of Act 1 to slog by. But by Act 2, with Veronica’s imminent death and a full reunion of the Webb sisters ratcheting up the dramatic tension, all we hear is the agonizing soundtrack of a family exploding from years of pent-up secrets, resentments and wounds that could have been prevented.
The four women at the heart of this story – White, Killeen, Doherty and Nichols –all have powerful, emotionally potent moments, with Nichols’ Gloria emerging as the most ferocious and White’s multifaceted performance offering the most nuance and complexity. The supporting cast doesn’t seem to have been paid much attention in rehearsal (or in last month’s Boston run for that matter) and don’t seem all that important, with the exception of the slimy character played by Lewis D. Wheeler.
At nearly three hours, The Hills of California has the heft of an intimate epic about generations of pain and the emotional detonation of grief, guilt and lives of promise gone sour. There’s some sweet music performed by the sisters, both in their youth and later on, but all the lovely harmonies in the world can’t make these Hills come alive with the sound of anything but life-altering pain.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Jez Butterworth’s The Hills of California continues through Dec. 7 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes (including one 15-minute intermission). Tickets are $25-$135 (subject to change). Call 510-647-2949 or visit berkeleyrep.org.
