Broadway Gold in "The Hills of California"

A long time ago in an interview, Alan Alda was asked about lines he remembered, specific pieces of dialogue that stood out after so many plays, movies and TV episodes. The former M*A*S*H*, film and theater star paused and answered that it wasn’t so much lines; it was moments. “The Hills of California,” written by Jez Butterworth and directed by Sam Mendes, is a play rich in moments and memories with a plot about how a fixation on the future can lead us to sacrifice our present.

The production, at the Broadhurst Theatre, brings an adept cast, fluid direction and dynamic staging to Broadway with sweeping staircases, as a kind of metaphor for impossible dreams, and a design by Rob Howell. It is a wonderfully acted production about sisters and a mother, dreams and how a mother’s dreams, in particular, in the end can destroy a family or at least let destruction in the front door. Sacrifice can make us stronger. It can also steal the very things we think we are sacrificing for, when ill advised. “The Hills of California” is about two and a half hours long (excluding intermission), but it is really about how dreams must be rooted in reality, in the present, and not based on recapitulating the past and how we must be true to our dreams, to ourselves, and not to others’ dreams that can be out of tune with ourselves and our times. It is about parenting gone wrong, ambition gone awry, and letting the proverbial fox into the hen coop. A standout cast of Americans and Brits, led by Laura Donnelly in the dual, very different, roles of Veronica (mother) and Joan (a wayward or at least rebellious daughter), not only bring the play to life, but provide intimate portraits on a Broadway stage.

This is truly a memorable show in every way, and one worth seeing for anyone seeking a good play, with music, but not a musical, and the kind of moments Alan Alda had in mind. By way of warning, confession or at least disclosure, I have seen this play twice and can only say the second time, when I was aware of the story from the start, and the British accents posed less of a barrier, the show seemed even better. It is a long, well-written, swan of a show, but a beautiful swan. The play has what could easily be called “unnecessary” or at least superfluous characters and important revelations made to people who are, if not irrelevant, not as important. But the flaws are minor compared to the force of the show.

People walk in and out with a little bit of the train station feel for the stage, but that is part of the rhythm. Men flit through this women’s world, as doctors, visitors, piano players, all ornamental or ornery figures, but this is a portrait of women trying to make their mark on the world, when the world makes its mark on them. All of that said, it is a strong, long show at a time when Broadway is very short on drama and plays where people express themselves by speaking rather than song. It is a play not only worth seeing, but worth seeing over and over again and it was my pleasure to see it twice. A cast of 23 creates the somewhat talky world with early scenes in Blackpool, England, in 1955 and scenes decades later in 1976. I would see it a third time, if I could, and my feeling is I would enjoy it even more, discovering more dialogue and finding more subtle moments. Good shows give you more each time you go, like good friends. Bad shows just are more nettlesome, as you find not only more flaws, but become more infuriated by the missed turns on the journey of the story that leaves the stage scattered with unrealized opportunity. This show takes no wrong turns, although there are long periods of dialogue that include hidden gems suddenly made obvious when you hear them clearly.

Some of the most moving moments in this production, directed by Mendes, first and foremost a movie director, are visual. There is a moment when one of the daughters, and they really are an ensemble cast, climbs the steps of a magnificent set to visit her dying mother. She is confronting and even making peace with the past. But instead of her mother, she encounters her younger self standing on the stairs. This moment is powerful as that past self confronts the present. We see that the present tense must respect, and is stopped by, the past. She is unable to relive, recapture, revise or remedy the past. Instead, she leaves the past alone and decides not to go back, giving up on, we think, possibly fixing yesterday’s errors and reconciling. In fact, reconciliation is a poor man’s reward when it comes too late. Moving on, finding freedom, moving forward, those are the true prizes of revelation. Not forgetting, but getting on with it. So many of us are prisoners of the past, as this daughter is. In order to rise above the past, we don’t have to repair it. We just have to recognize it has happened, that it is not us, and be ourselves as we are today. The past is the past. Let it live on in memory, but not stop us from becoming who we are meant to become.

The moment that summarizes and captures the spirit of the show most, however, is when Veronica asks her daughter Jill, played by Helena Wilson with just the right mix of fear and minx-like rebellion, a simple question. “What is a song?” Donnelly’s Veronica, the mother and ruler of this kingdom by the sea, asks. We all know that a song, at its simplest level, is a series of sounds and words, but of course, a song means much more than that. To Veronica, a song is a memory, an escape from the dreary drudgery of daily reality, a way to capture reality and pin beauty to the wall like a butterfly. It is a dream made real, briefly. Of course, the real beauty of a butterfly, and a song, is watching it fly free, something some of us forget when we try to pin it and possess it. The way some people go on vacations and other people use alcohol, the abiding beauty of music, a sign that her daughters are special, even spectacular, is Veronica’s drug of choice. “A song is a dream,” Jill answers as Veronica prods. “And the daughters in unison answer, “A place to be.” Music is their religion, built on faith and, we find out later, not on fact.

Veronica quietly completes this California catechism for her children, whom she treats as infants and aspects of herself, rather than fully realized adults, instruments to vicariously realize her dreams rather than individuals. “A song is a place to be,” Veronica says with the deliberate, measured meter of rehearsed diction as she plays the piano. “Somewhere you can live. And in that place, there are no walls. No boundaries. No locks. No keys. You can go anywhere.” Donnelly as Veronica sings, “The hills of California are something to see…." before the girls sing along that “The sun will kind of warm ya, and drop in the sea.” And then Veronica salvages disappointment with her own dollop of hope. “Now listen girls,” she says. “Listen to the wonderful news I have to tell you.” She so much wants them to succeed that she will delude not just them, but herself.

A song in this play is an escape from reality, but not only while it’s heard. This family wants music to be their ticket to exceptionalism. They view the alluring appeals of entertainment as a career, when so often it becomes a mistress that takes more than she gives, absorbs rather than supplies money. Donnelly is talking to her daughters, but convincing herself when she outlines the virtues of a “song.” Music to her is a bridge beyond the boredom of daily life, a way to find the beauty she cannot find in her world. Ironically, Veronica, played by Donnelly, is beautiful, exceptional, strong and driven, the perfect stage mother with a kind of contempt for those who cannot sing, never realizing she has never truly found her, or let her children find their, song. She is regal, the queen in a kingdom that exists only in a song. So many of us spend so much time pursuing a dream, and so little time choosing and evaluating it. Her Achilles heel is that she has a dream that no longer makes sense. This is a caveat emptor to those of us who hitch our wagon to a star, without truly studying the constellations first. Dreams may or may not die first, but they do have expiration dates. For many, music can be that star that misleads us, as we lose sight of our lives while we dutifully keep our eyes on the desolate expanse of distant stars.

While this is not a musical, it is a play about the chains of reality, the weight of the ordinary and the danger of sacrificing our happiness on the altar of the golden calves of disingenuous, even duplicitous dreams built on music. For anyone who has ever tried to live a dream vicariously, this is your play. For anyone who has found someone who seems to be the one to advance your dream, only to dash or ignore it, this will feel familiar. There are the haves, the have nots and the hopefuls. A mother’s belief is a beautiful thing, but just as Willy Loman sells Biff a bad bill of goods, Veronica sells her daughters old, disused, even pre-owned dreams. While they may have talent, it must be displayed in a way in tune with the times. This play is about how the haves take advantage of the other half. While stage mothers can work wonders, they can also miss the point, teaching people music from their youth, enjoying the art of another time. There is a difference between enjoying a child’s successes and using them to create your own. In “The Hills of California,” California itself represents the unattainable Nirvana of perfection, success and acceptance for a family in a British boarding house. It also leads to an unfathomable breach of trust in which the women turn on each other and let a wolf into the house.

We are told that the building is called the Seaview, or various variations of that. But, of course, there is no view of the sea. That’s a running joke. When years later, the adult daughters look at the guest book, they see guests complaining that, well, there is no view of the sea. Veronica’s views of the world are not based on reality. Wish it and so it will be, but unfortunately, reality has a recalcitrant way of refusing our most fervent exhortations to become what we want. These ambitions are aspirational not practical. Measure your dreams against the yardstick of reality and not desire. Dreamers get nothing done while doers succeed. Are your aspirations hopes or plans? It is so important (nothing, I would argue, is more important than this) to understand the difference between an aspiration and an ambition, a dream built on a desire and a goal based on actual effort. Musical beauty is one thing. Musical success is another. One is in your control. The other is not. And therein lies the danger for this family that turns their kitchen into their stage, and their home into their theater. They rarely venture out, afraid that reality will burst their balloon. If you are afraid of reality, the thing to fear is your own unrealistic ambition. The harsh light of day is the friend of the realist and the death of the vampire.

This play is beautifully written, with realistic, but comic dialogue where we see a world of women, struggling, succeeding, smiling, being sad. The daughters are taught to duplicate the Andrews Sisters from costume to choral synchronization. The versions of the young daughters (Nancy Allsop, Nicola Turner, Sophia Ally, Lara McDonnell) provide an impressive performance. When they are all decked out, dancing and singing Andrews Sisters numbers, there is only one problem. They are not the Andrews Sisters. A statement about Dadaism applies here. You can duplicate the first raindrop, but not its fall. A singer named Elvis, an American promoter played with clinical, business-like detachment by Brian Dick tells us, is making waves. He is American. He is the present. He is all about the business of music. Veronica asks who this "Elvis" is.

She is stuck in the past with her eyes focused on yesterday, so deep in denial that her dreams become a kind of self-intoxicating, self-medication rather than a career path. She might as well be drinking, or shooting up drugs. These dreams are laced with something almost as dangerous as Fentanyl. She believes she is doing the best for her daughters, which is what makes the developments tragic. The play, really, is not just about music. It is about anyone stuck in the past, clinging to the past like a plank of wood in the ocean to help them survive. It is about motherhood missing the mark. Ernest Hemingway’s wife lost a suitcase full of his writing. All of his writing. He had been writing short stories. After that, it seems, he was liberated. He went on to write novels. Ezra Pound said he had lost his “juvenilia.” That sorrow turned to be the step forward he needed. He let go of his past, not only events, but the person he was. He became a new person, the novelist we know today. When the past is shattered here, there is, however, no getting beyond it. This is a play about how parents can damage their children even when they love them. Children are not parents’ pawns, toys or tools. Our children must lead us, as well as listen to us.

“The Hills of California,” which expertly if sometimes slowly weaves together two times into one tale, begins with the older sisters back where they grew up, and their mother, off stage, on her deathbed in a room high upstairs. It is as if she is already in heaven, although that would mean she is forgiven her most heinous mistake. There’s an occasional reference to some terrible behavior. She may end up in heaven, or the other place. And we see Helena Wilson as Jill smoking, only to snuff out a cigarette in the first few seconds. Penny, played by Ta’Rea Campbell, the only African American in the cast, has the role of someone there to serve other characters. She does a good job with a character that isn’t fleshed out, although she cares for others. So many characters flit in and out, without being essential. That may be the style of the show, reminding us that people walk in and out of our lives. Still, it might have been nice to see deeper into her character’s heart.

While the mother is on her deathbed, her mark has been made on her daughters. Even as adults, the adult children feel the pressure to live up to expectations, at least publicly. An old juke box, a dinosaur in a not yet digital but still modern age, remains, frozen in time and dysfunctional just as the family is. The daughters arrive quickly, except for Joan, who has moved to California, possibly trying to live “in” the song they sang. We cut back and forth between the daughters and the mother as children and as adults. The past is an idyllic world, a place where anything is possible. How many of us remember the dreams we once had, in days when every actor could be the next James Dean, every actress was waiting for her Marilyn moment, every director would be Elia Kazan if only given the opportunity, every singer is a Bruce Springsteen in training? Our hopes make us huge. These women live in a bubble that, like most bubbles, must pop. The daughters are a singing group as much as, or more than, a family. We see them come to life when they sing, alive in their mother’s eyes and their own. They are performers, even more than people. They are living a private dream, as we learn about another girl who suddenly succeeded and is now playing at the Palladium. If she could do it, why not I? How many of us can point to huge successes who clearly deserve that less than we do?

Men are interlopers here rather than individuals, wolves in this world of sheep. And the father is conspicuously absent not only physically, but in dialogue. There are no family pictures or traces of a typical past in this place. The father has vanished without a trace, a receptacle for sperm who has since moved on. When a guest, and men are guests, tourists, passersby, in this world, walks in, trying to walk through the house part of the hotel, Veronica summarily instructs him to stay out of that area or else. But, he says, it takes ten minutes more to walk through the other door. The man, as if a threat, or a representation of a greater reality, is told if he dares trespass on this room, this private world, he will be thrown out. He appears a bit later, after having walked through the other door, exhausted by his sentence to take the long way home. Veronica understands the beauty and the fragility of bubbles and she will do anything to protect her dream, even if that simultaneously prevents it from becoming real. Hope is not only that thing with feathers. It is that thing with wings that, all too often, never flies, a fragile, breakable thing that, if it is to endure, requires effort, compromise and testing in the real world. There is always hope beyond the next hat, but it never gets closer than that. Veronica truly does try to live in a song, but life is not a song. The only soundtrack to an ordinary life is our emotions.

When a big gig is cancelled, Veronica lies and tries to find a silver lining. Then we hear about an American, a big music promoter, in town. When Jack  Larkin (Bryan Dick) arrives, he is tall and thin, devoid of the life of this women’s world. There is something jarring about his detachment, a cigarette in a world where smoking is not allowed. He is all business, in it for himself, all about money not music, referring to Nat King Cole as “Nat,” talking about how he bought songs for him, speaking with purpose, shooing away another man. Yet, he represents reality, compromise, not the beauty of the bird, but the man who builds the cage. He was fired by Nat King Cole, because he took too much money. If he is all business. Veronica is all art or all dreams. When he becomes interested in one of the girls and asks to hear her sing in private in one of the rooms, where the acoustics are better, we know his interest is something other than professional. He is a user not at home in this world of dreamers. When young Joan  (Lara McDonnell) goes up to sing for him, the second the singing stops, we know something else has begun. Silence is violence.

Later on, we see Joan (also played by Laura Donnelly, in addition to her portrayal earlier in the show) return. Played by the same actress who portrayed the mother, it is a performance that showcases the chameleon-like ability to change of a gifted actor. The daughter is totally opposite from the mother, and the performances reflect that. While the entire cast is talented, it would be fair to say the two best performances are given by Laura Donnelly, a bravura performance worth seeing. She has the sophistication and superiority of someone better than everyone around her, as the mother. As the daughter, with an American accent, she is a rebel, an individual who understands she must take what she wants, and that will mean suffering along the way. She talks about meeting the real Andrews Sisters in the real Los Angeles, working as a pizza delivery person after tiring of the struggle to succeed.

Older Joan, hardly Saint Joan, has met great musicians and hobnobbed with people leading heroic lives. She is back like some Odysseus who has sailed the sea and really seen the “view” of the sea. Her American accent shows us she has adopted the language, or the tone, of her abuser or attacker. She is tough.  She is talented. But she is also broken. “We are all broken. That’s how the light gets in,” is a famous misquote that is, nevertheless, true. We hear revelations about the fateful night that the music promoter arrived and ruined their world. The sound of the winged chariots of time is never far from any of us. There is plenty of blame to go around. Yes, the mother offered to go into a room with the man, who pretended to be confused by the offer. She was willing to sleep with him to advance her daughters’ careers, as well as to sell one out, if the group was too big. Her agenda mattered more than her affections. And she knew what she was doing when she let her daughter climb those stairs to meet with the music promoter, like a girl climbing the steps to the noose. Yet the daughter, even though she was only a girl, also wanted success so much that she would sacrifice. Who is wrong? Who is more wrong? Who is to blame? And worst of all, not only did career and dreams disintegrate. The things that mattered most in this family, their relationships, are lost. The ability to use imagination to see the sea vanishes. Dreams die first? But when they die, relationships also can go by the wayside. This play is about mothers and daughters and what can come between them. As in most deals with the devil, the devil gets his due and the one making the transaction just gets used.

This is a beautiful, painful play. I still believe that the British accents mean you lose lines. And yes, it’s too long. But is a Mozart symphony too long? Who times Beethoven? What’s there is beautiful. Yes, it has many more characters than are needed. Yes, it is sometimes difficult to understand lines, due to heavy British accents that can make dialogue seem like words carved in Rosetta stone rather than spoken on stage. But this is a heartfelt, moving paen of a play with wonderful dialogue, great characters and a powerful story. The first time I saw “The Hills of California,” I did not "truly" see or hear part of it, because of problems I had in navigating the British accents. The second time I saw this play was like a revelation and a revolution. It’s truly a great show that could use cuts, possibly, simply due to length. There is a saying that playwrights must kill their babies. Letting those babies grow up and live on stage has its benefits, too. And telling two parallel stories, past and present, does take more time.

This is a play about women, mothers, daughters, about how living one’s dreams vicariously can easily turn into a nightmare. I happened to see this play with someone who appreciated it as much as I did. And I would not only recommend this play, but seeing it or any show with someone else who truly appreciates what you’re seeing. “The Hills of California” is meant, I believe, to be a metaphor for an unattainable dream that, in the end, betrays us or leads us to betray ourselves and one another. Be true to yourself. Be true to your dreams, but pick your dreams carefully. And if you want to be happy, be true to your reality, not just your dreams. Your reality is the only thing you have. And if your dreams become real, then you have that. If you're not careful, you may find yourself sacrificing for a dream that is never realized, ending up with a handful of air. This play is one that, while it may not change you, will move you, if you let it. There is gold in those hills. And it’s great news, for New York audiences at least, that this gold is right here on Broadway where it belongs. All we need to do is go there and see it mined by a wonderful cast and director on stage where a wonderful writer has strewn so many shiny objects across a magnificent set that we can discover in the nuggets of dialogue many of the moments that Alan Alda must have meant, and remember them long after the show is done and, possibly, long after this wonderful production has closed.