In Jez Butterworth’s “The Hills of California,” the four Webb sisters gather in the summer of 1976 at Seaview the guesthouse on the outskirts of Blackpool, an English seaside resort on the Irish Sea, where their mother Veronica (a once demanding and selfish Laura Donnelly) lies dying upstairs in what was their childhood home. Jill (an angst-ridden and spinsterish Helena Wilson) appears first smoking a cigarette, a habit she picked up from her renegade sister Joan two decades ago. Soon sisters Ruby (Ophelia Lovibond) and Gloria (a seemingly shattered Leanne Best) arrive with Gloria’s husband Bill (Richard Short) and their children Tony (Liam Bixby) and Patty (Nancy Allsop) in tow. Joan has not yet arrived. Her aeroplane from California was cancelled, but she promised Jill she is still coming. Jill believes Joan, her two sisters are skeptical their “famous” sister will show up. There appears to be no love lost between Gloria and the soon-to-arrive Joan.

How the Webb family arrives at Seaview in their less than psychologically integrated state is brilliantly fleshed out in the carefully interwoven scenes from twenty-one years ago when Veronica was coaching her four daughters for stardom. The scenes in the public parlour and the kitchen of the family home pull back the layers of the success and failure of Veronica’s struggle to achieve her own dreams of stardom through the lives of her daughters whose lives are crammed full of rehearsal after rehearsal of songs that turn out not to be what the English audience favors any longer.

Perhaps the climax of the narrative occurs when one of Veronica’s boarders Jack Larkin (Bryan Dick) arranges an at home audition for the quartet with American talent Luther St. John (David Wilson Barnes). Jack arranged the audition after Veronica visits him in his upstairs lodging at the boarding house. Although the audition seems to have gone well, Luther tells Veronica that she has unfortunately prepared her daughters to perform in a musical style no longer in fashion. He does think Joan has a future as a solo artist and thinks he might have a spot for her at “a charity event, with a whole roster. Some household names. Some new faces. It’s at the London Palladium”

Despite Veronica’s misgivings and her dogged belief that Luther has misjudged the quartet’s chances for future success, she allows Luther to hear Joan sing her favorite song “When I Fall in Love.” Claiming the acoustics in the kitchen are not favorable, Luther convinces Veronica to allow him to continue the audition in one of the rooms upstairs. As they ascend the stairs, it is painfully obvious that Veronica has sacrificed her to Luther for the possibility of stardom. As Jill discloses in the present, “Joan was fifteen. A man took her upstairs, with mum’s blessing – and he made you lie down / and you got pregnant. Then she made you have an abortion.”

The adult Joan’s late arrival at Seaview, and the strained conversation that ensues as the four sisters grapple with their versions on the past, and realize their belief that Joan went on to have a successful career on stage is no longer true and no longer an excuse to blame Joan for their present angst. Their fractured Weltanschauung leaves Jill, Ruby, and Gloria without any alternative but to admit they are responsible for their own lives and their own futures. Joan confronts them with their new truth: “But don’t go telling me what happened that night. You weren’t there. Neither was mom. The Donkey takes a dump. Roses grow. Nobody killed your dreams, Gloria. Just like nobody killed mine. Should I throw in my cards? Maybe. Will I? Fuck no. I’m bound to this wheel for life. This is where I live and this is where I’ll die. Like mom. All she wanted was for us to be safe.”

Like Mama Rose in “Gypsy (opening the Majestic opening soon just down the block from The Broadhurst), Veronica’s life is about the success of her four daughters. She has groomed their retro Andrew Sisters act to the level of what she considers perfection. For this “Mama,” nothing short of London’s Palladium is in the quartet’s future of success on the stage. Veronica believed a “Song is a dream, a place to be [where] there are no walls. No boundaries. No locks. No keys. You can go anywhere.” That song turns out to be an illusion for the Webb family. Jill’s, Gloria’s, and Ruby’s adult song has been about how their estranged sister Joan “fucked up their lives.”

Sam Mendes carefully directs the twenty-three members of the outstanding acting ensemble and thoroughly mines every rich layer of Jez Butterworth’s tightly woven and emotionally charged script. “The Hills of California” is a masterpiece of contemporary theatre and is a must see before it closes on Sunday, December 22, 2024. He weaves the cast through the set designer Rob Howell’s complex staircases and Jez Butterworth’s equally complex and multilayered script.

“The Hills of California” is the story of a dysfunctional family, broken apart by delusional thinking, fear, great expectations dashed by the specter of reality, and dreams shattered by a series of bad decisions. The stunning play is also about confession, forgiveness, and blessed balm of reconciliation.