Theatergoers might think they don’t need yet another dysfunctional family drama in which fractious adult siblings assemble at their childhood home as a parent is dying. But they’d be wrong.
“The Hills of California” by British playwright Jez Butterworth (“Jerusalem,” “The Ferryman” and more) proves that the particular setup works, even down to the details; for example, the black sheep who’s a late arrival to the scene, about whom everyone talks in advance; and the one poor soul who got stuck and never left home.
This Berkeley Repertory Theatre production (a collaboration with The Huntington in Boston) is set in a small boarding house in the seaside town of Blackpool, England. As it begins, Mum, the owner, is unseen upstairs, dying of cancer. A shoutout here for Andrew Boyce and Se Hyun Oh’s great set design, featuring a rolling platform that whisks us from the mid-1950s to the mid-’70s, and also the tallest set of staircases imaginable, which Mum’s daughters must continually, wearily, apprehensively mount.
We first meet three of the four Webb sisters: nervous, excitable Jillian (Karen Killeen), the one who never left; seemingly cheerful and well-adjusted Ruby (Aimee Doherty); and perennially-in-a-rage Gloria (Amanda Kristin Nicols).
Soon enough, the platform rotates, where the women, as teenagers (Nicole Mulready, Chloé Kolbenheyer and Meghan Carey respectively) are completely under the control of their stage-mother-from-hell, Veronica (Allison Jean White). Mum is preparing them for an Andrews Sisters-like stage debut that will ultimately result in a Hollywood career. “I want them to live, to soar,” she rhapsodizes.
Later, as adults, there’s the inevitable late and much-anticipated arrival of a fourth sister, Joan (White again), who’s been away in America for 20 years. It is Joan’s complicated fate that drives the plot.
Peripheral characters appear and reappear: an unflappable nurse (Patrice Jean-Baptiste) who’s caring for Mum. Ruby’s hopelessly dull husband (Kyle Cameron). Gloria’s husband and teenage kids. Jack (Cameron again), a compulsive jokester that nobody thinks is funny. A pianist, a handyman, an American talent scout . . . and others.
The speedy first act requires intense concentration to follow the rapid dialogue, acclimate yourself to the working-class British accents and to figure out who everyone is. Some actors play multiple roles, and Butterworth, thankfully, doesn’t veer from reality to spell out exactly who is who—but there seems to be a few too many male characters. Why everyone is the way they are, another element that requires a lot of attention, will be revealed in the second act.
And it will become apparent that the four sisters, once so completely under their mother’s control, remember the past slightly differently. It’s fascinating to see, as the play veers back and forth over that 20-year interval, the ways that their childhood shaped them.
There is much to love throughout the more than two-and-a-half-hour drama.
Watching and listening to the youthful quartet tap dancing and singing in close harmony (“Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B” ) is sheer pleasure. How the four adult sisters navigate their way through a whole series of mixed emotions, as Mum lies upstairs dying in terrible pain, is increasingly involving as the second act continues.
Director Loretta Greco (former Magic Theatre artistic director) pulls no punches. This is a vibrant, physically realistic show that’s brisk when it needs to be, silent when necessary. The cast is generally strong (despite a bit of overacting and some fake, forced sobbing here and there); White, as Veronica and adult Joan, is especially attuned to all the nuances of her two complicated characters.
Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s “The Hills of California” continues through Dec. 7 at the Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $25-$100 at berkeleyrep.org.
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