The Hills of California – 28 September 2024

The past and the present collide and intertwine in ways that are visually stunning and emotionally stirring. The beautiful scenic design (Rob Howell) and the lighting design (Natasha Chivers) meaningfully take us through time on a journey that spans the full spectrum of human emotion. Beauty and pain create each other in a cyclical spiral that spins faster and faster until they are inseparable. The marketing for this production showcases a roller coaster. Although no theme park rides appear (or are mentioned) in this show, the experience of watching it certainly felt like one. I laughed, my eyes teared up, my heart sang, my stomach dropped, and I embraced an experience that simultaneously held space for a former me and a future me.

The direction, staging, and design of this show are conceptually brilliant. Howell’s set for this production was a turntable with one side set in 1976 (this show’s present) and one side set in 1955 (the childhood of the four sisters around whom the story centers). Above the set was a series of staircases, some leading to doors, others disappearing into the rafters. Both sets represented the same kitchen where Joan (1976: Laura Donnelly, 1955: Lara McDonnell), Gloria (1976: Leanne Best, 1955: Nancy Allsop), Ruby (1976: Ophelia Lovibond, 1955: Sophia Ally), and Jill (1976: Helena Wilson, 1955: Nicola Turner) grew up, but as the show progressed through the sisters’ memories, the adults found themselves in their childhood kitchen. At the very end of the show, as the doctor and nurse euthanized their mother off stage, the four sisters sang together for the first time since their childhood. The turntable started to turn and the set and sound (des. Nick Powell) switched to the voices of their childhood selves. In the final moment, we see and hear the cast as children singing together in the 1976 kitchen, as though the adults feel the presence of their childhood selves and the closeness of their childhood bonds in this complicated moment of losing their mother.

Another standout moment toward the end of the show was when adult Joan cannot climb the staircase that fifteen year old Joan last went down when being sent away from home after terminating an unwanted pregnancy that resulted from a mother-approved attempt to sleep her way into a musical career. In this moment, the turntable froze mid turn, with half the stage set in 1976 and half the stage set in 1955, as Joan discovered her inability to confront her former self. The stark juxtaposition between where Joan started and ended up was striking, especially when compared to Gloria, Ruby, and Jill.

This was a show where birth order dramatically impacted the fates of Veronica Webb’s (also played by Laura Donnelly) girls, on a spectrum of bitter, sarcastic, damaged Joan, to hurt, dramatic, angry Gloria, to funny, light-hearted, panic-riddled Ruby, to soft-spoken, innocent, optimistic Jill. Each successive daughter was less adventurous and took fewer risks.  The younger daughters were happier adults, but lived simpler existences. They all had strong feelings about their mother, but drastically different ones. Jill was exceptionally devoted, Ruby a little indifferent and uncomfortable, Gloria erratically holding on to the feeling of inferiority her mother instilled in her as a child, and Joan… Joan avoided the family for so long that she was no longer part of it.

Adult Joan’s appearance was brief, yet her younger self shaped and molded every other character into who they became as adults. Veronica felt monstrous and blamed herself, Gloria couldn’t play second fiddle to Joan in her mother’s eyes or the world’s or her own, Ruby wanted to laugh away her discomfort and never learned to process her panic, and Jill’s secret plan for Joan came from the belief that an apology from Joan would prolong her mother’s life. Nobody cared about Joan, Joan included, yet this story was about the destructive nature of her absence more than her presence.

It was profound, not just convenient, that Joan and Veronica were both played by Laura Donnelly because Joan’s miserable single-album, pizza-delivering life in California was the stuff of Veronica’s dream. The saddest element of the show that resonated most deeply was that in 1955, all of the characters who were adults, particularly, Veronica, decided what the girls’ dreams were. They didn’t have dreams of their own, and neither did the sisters. They never got to form them. Joan got the closest, and her embodiment of living the dream seemed very close to living a nightmare.

Haunting and provocative, this play evoked a roller coaster of emotion that is moving and memorable.  Jez Butterworth and Sam Mendes have created a commendable tour de force that is a triumph, a delight, and a true masterpiece.

I attended this production on a press pass from Boneau/Bryan-Brown.