The Hills of California @ Harold Pinter Theatre, London
I wasn’t intending to watch this play until I started to hear good and powerful things about it from Little London Whispers and Mickey-Jo Theatre; with caution I decided to watch. And I’m so glad I did — this was also my first Jez Butterworth play! What a play! What writing and characterisation! The front of house staff at Harold Pinter Theatre are also very lovely — go to this theatre just for them!
The play focuses on the Webb sisters in 1976 Blackpool during a heatwave. They are returning to be with their youngest sister in a guest house ‘Seaview’, which doesn’t have a seaview at all, and has had a lot of name changes over the years. One of the sisters is missing — now living in America and the others wonder about her, her life, if she will come back — as she’s been out of contact for years. Their mother Veronica (Laura Donnelly) is frail and lies dying upstairs — there are ongoing discussions with her nurse about how to best care for her. Jill (Helena Wilson) groans under the burden of it all — and with discussing it with her sisters, in a family where there seem to be many secrets and not a lot of openness. Of them all, Jill is the only one who has not left and seems to be stuck in her life.
The sisters have also brought their husbands along — who are promptly dispatched to the long closed corner shop to purchase Twiglets and Black Magic. Ruby (Ophelia Lovibond) is kind, but appreciates that her life is dull. She also teeters between peace maker and anxiously creeping around her sisters. Gloria (Leanne Best) is very much the bossy elder sister and tries to take control of everyone and everything. She also seethes with sense of humour failure at her husband’s funny voices and at everyone in general. She also has two teenage children along for the ride — who are promptly dispatched the seafront. The gathering of the clan is tense, especially when Gloria senses people enjoying themselves — Ruby and Jill break into long remembered song and dance numbers.
The guest house is crumbling. The neglected and not played piano is being tuned. There’s a juke box which doesn’t work, which one of the husband’s sets to fixing. The sisters reminisce about their girlhood, chat about life now and watch and wait. Will Joan the oldest sister return, and in time? Jill is very determined that Joan be well thought of.
Through a gently rotating set we flash back to, I guess the late 1950s or early 1960s. The guest house is a gleaming respectable place and their mother rules over it all as a upstanding war widow. Storytelling is embedded within the foundation of the family as their father has a mysterious heroic wartime background — which keeps changing with every telling.
Fiercely protective of her family, her girls — woe betide anyone who dares to walk through the family space to get to their room. (Though Veronica will overlook the ‘Mr and Mrs Smiths’ who come to stay). She also has big dreams for her girls who are being trained to be the next Andrews Sisters, with costumes, performing opportunities, practicing and examples to emulate. Joan (Laura McDonnell) is a fifteen year old dreaming of boys and rebelliously secretly smoking, who is also her mother’s confidant. Of all her sisters, she is the one who is the targeted focus of her mother’s hopes and dreams. Her mother really wants them to be something, to do something, to shine brightly. It’s like a fierce roar coming out of her. Veronica has always been known locally for her looks and style — her ambitions are huge for her girls — and they need to be ready.
Aiming for an opportunity, a talent scout is invited to hear the girls singing. Only he says as an aside to their mother that only Joan has potential — and for her whole acoustic potential he needs to be out of the kitchen and in another room. Which turns out to be one of the American named rooms at the top of the house. The play is divided into three acts with pauses in between. We watch Joan and the talent scout from America ominously heading up the creaking stairs — another adult isn’t allowed in the room for some reason. We start to hear Joan sing — and then alarmingly her singing cuts off.
The reveal in the third act is an outpouring of what happened to Joan since; who knew what when and what has been said and not said. Even then, truth and reality still comes out in fragments, we don’t fully know. The sisters also have to acknowledge the truth of all of this — leading to Ruby having a panic attack — and Gloria turning on Joan in blame and shame, and eventually apologising to her. It turns out that Gloria heard what went on inside the room. Jill can’t understand why Joan won’t atleast see their mother now. This moment is a fascinating exploration of the difference between reconciliation and forgiveness, and how so much can be put on victims of abuse.
Joan (Laura Donnelly) returns secretively in a fantastic Afghan coat and gold metallic blouse, and rocking an American accent. Ruby’s fangirling of her is very funny. She also has married, brough her baby with her and has met the Andrews sisters, though her life has been very tough and her American dreams of fame have never worked out. Meanwhile, Jill has found the family’s Moses basket and memories in it — the sisters explore the story their family has been telling each other before and after the ‘incident’. What happens next is unexpected… but provides a satisfying resolution.
I loved Jez Butterworth’s writing and the nuanced reality of all the characters. Everyone was fully rounded in the play and they leave you caring about them and thinking about them after the play has ended — you are fully absorbed into their lives and points of view. Particularly well written are the husbands who could just be there as a comic gimmick, but have their own moments of storytelling and dreaming. There’s a really sweet moment when one of the husbands comforts his nephew, saying that the arguing and crying was nothing to worry about, with the reassurance of adult to child and the pre-online age. I loved the costumes too — all the flares! Impressive too was the acting from the younger versions of the sisters — the segue between the girls and the women was seamless.
It’s an exploration of women in the music industry, and also about women trying to find their place in the world when those places were limited and restricted; how women get power and agency at this time. Furthermore, it interrogates women in the music industry and why Me Too incidents could even happen.
Joan’s character arc is the most troubling — she moves from a bright, chatty, hopeful schoolgirl to someone who has really suffered and distanced herself from the pain of it all. We learnt that she got pregnant at fifteen, had an abortion and was packed off to America. Her monosyllables and what isn’t said, say it all. Yet, even still, Gloria portrays Joan as self-absorbed and selfish, unforgiving. At the heart of it is Veronica’s role in everything — how guilty and culpable is she for what happened to Joan. We see her wrestling with herself as she decides whether to let Joan go upstairs or not with the talent agent; she herself being very concerned with propriety and appropriateness. Is she to blame and is she responsible? Her feelings about this are still eating up her up even on her death bed. Was her ambition for her girls really about her own ambitions and dreams, and desire for opportunities?
Never exploitative, this drama holds back, suggests and lets us as audience think about what happened and why.
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