Maybe it is the near-vertical two flights of stairs. Maybe it is the mother whom none of us would want to call our own. At first viewing of “The Hills of California” in London this year, I thought Jez Butterworth had written the British “August: Osage County,” Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play from 2008.
Having now seen “The Hills of California” on Broadway, where it opened Sunday at the Broadhurst Theatre, I realize Butterworth has written something much more significant and moving. In crossing the Atlantic Ocean, he also cut a plot detail from the third act — and it’s a prime example of less being not only more but much better.
Three adult sisters (Leanne Best, Ophelia Lovibond, Helena Wilson) have gathered at their childhood home in Blackpool, England to keep a vigil while their mother dies of cancer upstairs. Her bedroom is not only upstairs, it is waaaay upstairs. Two husbands and two children have also made the trip, and those characters are just the icing on a cast of 17 that create not only an extended family, but a community that breathes life into the world of three vital but deeply damaged sisters.
This review is not going to be filled with spoilers, but it’s probably best not to read the following paragraph if you have any intention of seeing “The Hills of California.” One of the many great pleasures of Butterworth’s play is a major piece of double-casting, and it can only be fully enjoyed if you don’t know it’s coming in the play’s third act. Yes, not only has Butterworth had the guts and the clout to write a play that requires 17 actors — he has written three acts that last two hours and forty-five minutes. “The Hills of California” is a full meal with drinks included, not one of those skimpy 90-minute two-hander snacks that have taken over the theater world.
So now for the big spoiler regarding the double-casting: Butterworth never lets us see the mother dying in her upstairs bedroom that probably looks a lot like the bedroom that houses Norman Bates’ mom in “Psycho.” Instead, Butterworth flips us back 22 years to 1955, where the mother, Veronica (Laura Donnelly), is a middle-aged widow in the process of turning her four adolescent daughters (Sophia Ally, Nancy Allsop, Lara McDonnell, Nicola Turner) into the next Andrews Sisters.
In a strange bit of fate, the theater that houses “The Hills of California” is next door to the Majestic Theatre, which will soon be home to the new revival of “Gypsy” starring Audra McDonald. If you were a young performer and had a choice between stage mothers, you would be right to pick Mama Rose over Veronica any working day of your young life. Veronica would use Rose to floss her teeth after breakfast.
Gypsy Rose Lee survives the dreams of her mother. Veronica’s daughters don’t. And there is no better proof of the curdling power of this mother’s showbiz fantasies than the life of the missing fourth daughter, Joan, who — in that stunning bit of double-casting — shows up in the third act to be played by Donnelly, whom we’ve seen in acts 1 and 2 playing the middle-aged Veronica. The words “tour de force” don’t begin to describe Donnelly’s flip-flop-perfect performance. It explodes silently on the set’s iconic staircase in a wordless confrontation between the adult Joan and the adolescent Joan (McDonnell).
Sam Mendes’ direction delivers that stunning moment by making perfect use of Rob Howell’s cold, spooky and monumental set. In addition to giving us Donnelly’s great performance, Mendes makes us believe the four adolescent actors are real sisters.
He is not quite as successful with the four adult actors playing those same siblings. No individual performance can be faulted, but his direction overemphasizes the personality differences. Butterworth’s script asks that they be distinct individuals, but Best’s Gloria is just a touch too shrewish, Lovibond’s Ruby a bit too horny, Wilson’s Jill a smidge too virginal.
One other quibble: For a play that runs nearly three hours, Butterworth uses two minor characters at the top of Act 3 to deliver some essential exposition regarding Joan’s past. It’s the kind of information that should have been sprinkled throughout the play by the sister characters, not dumped on stage with such expedient clumsiness.
Butterworth has done some judicious cutting on his play between the West End and Broadway. Beyond the staircase and the mother character, “The Hills of California” and “August: Osage County” used to have something more in common: a penchant for overly melodramatic effects. Letts drops some soap-opera bomb every 15 minutes in his play. Butterworth followed suit in “Hills” when he had Joan show up in the third act with a baby that she expects her sisters to raise.
On Broadway, the kid has been axed. Good riddance.
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