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Review: Solid Gold Performances Elevate The Hills of California
September 29, 2024, 11:02.42 pm ET

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Photo: Joan Marcus

By Brian Scott Lipton

I don’t think Jez Butterworth needs to worry about remembering his partner Laura Donnelly’s birthday or their anniversary for a while – never mind buying her diamonds or roses – since he’s given her two priceless gifts: the roles of tough-as-steel stage mother Veronica and her estranged eldest daughter Joan in his new play “The Hills of California,” now at the Broadhurst Theatre.

While this dysfunctional family drama slides by surprisingly smoothly over its 2 ¾ hours running time, thanks to his colorful writing, the superb work of an ensemble cast, and the seamless direction of the great Sam Mendes, it’s only on your train or taxi ride home that it will hit you just how overlong, overpopulated and undernourished the work really is. It’s ultimately little more than a worthy imitation of something Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee might have written in their prime, and not a play as sui generis as Butterworth’s “The Ferryman” or “Jerusalem.”

We start in Blackpool, England in the 1970s inside the overdecorated Seaview Guest House (the elaborate and elaborately constructed set is by Rob Howell), where the unseen Veronica is dying painfully upstairs. Meanwhile, her daughter and longtime caretaker, the virginal, seemingly simple Jillian Webb (an evocative Helena Wilson) is dealing with the arrival of her sisters, first the less-than-happily married Ruby (an appealing Ophelia Lovebond) and then the genuinely unhappy Gloria (a deliberately shrill Leanne Best).

Decisions on Veronica’s future need to be made, but Jillian refuses to proceed until the arrival of her eldest sibling, Joan, whose plane from California has supposedly been delayed or cancelled. Or has it? We soon discover Joan has not visited her childhood home – nor sent a card nor letter – in 20 years, and Ruby and Gloria are distinctly skeptical that she’ll ever appear.

Presto, chango, we’re back in the 1950s where the young Webb sisters (Nancy Allsop, Nicola Turner, Sophia Ally, and Lara McDonnell) are being groomed for stardom by the single-minded Veronica, who insist the girls’ harmonies are as a tight as their heroes, the Andrews Sisters, and who takes no guff from anyone, whether it be her children or her paying hotel guests.

Dressed in spot-on period garb (also by Howell), Donnelly almost seems to be channeling Rosalind Russell in the film version of “Gypsy” (with a bit of Joan Crawford thrown in). But unlike Rose Hovick, Veronica -- a supposed war widow - is seemingly not doing all of this work solely “for me” but to both enhance her personal circumstances and give her daughters a better life.

Out of the blue, she’s put to the ultimate test by the arrival of a famous American music manager, Luther St. John (well played by David Wilson Barnes), who has been brought to the house by cheeky lodger Jack Larkin (a very funny Bryan Dick) to see the girls in action.

Unsurprisingly, Luther shows a particular interest in 15-year-old Joan -- and it’s never really in suspense that Veronica will encourage that connection. However, whether she truly envisions all of that encounter’s consequences remains a bit of mystery in Donnelly’s beautifully layered performance.

Rest assured, Butterworth will reveal what happened during and after that fateful night long before the third-act arrival of Joan (brilliantly played by an unrecognizable Donnelly with a throaty American accent and dressed like an aging version of Penny Lane from “Almost Famous”). And while Joan’s return strikingly re-energizes the play, it leads to a lot of talk among the four sisters (take that, Chekhov!) in the family kitchen that doesn’t completely clear the smoke-filled air.

Yes, some proverbial fences appear to get mended; Joan is forced to both reveal the truth of her less-than-glamorous present existence and wrestle with her conscience over what happened in the past; and Veronica’s fate finally gets sealed. But the damage that has been done to all the Webb girls can’t fully be repaired, just as is true of the Seaview (and Blackpool itself). While Veronica always insisted “a song is a place you live in,” the sad truth is happiness remains a dream that can be sung about but not actually lived in.

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