Allison Jean White Photo by Liza Voll

The action takes place on a soaring set by designers Andrew Boyce and Se Hyun Oh depicting the ironically named Seaview Luxury Guesthouse in the resort town of Blackpool, England and transitions between 1976 and 1955. The Webb sisters are played as girls by Nicole Mulready (Jillian), Meghan Carey (Gloria), Kate Fitzgerald (Joan), and Chloé Kolbenheyer (Ruby).

The young women have gathered at the guesthouse because their mother is ensconced in one of the upstairs rooms, near death from stomach cancer. Given how tall the structure is, mother Veronica might already be halfway to heaven in her top floor sickbed. As the family assembles for the death watch–assisted by nurse Penny (Patrice Jean-Baptiste)–old feuds and rivalries are raised as each sister deals with the impending loss in their own way. Gloria, played with spicy relish by Nichols, is the angriest sister, with a foul mouth and a corresponding willingness to speak hard truths. Jillian, the peacemaker, has been caring for their mother, which makes sense, her character being the gentlest member of the quartet. Brassy Ruby is closer in mien to Gloria, with misanthropic pronunciations like her statement that living with four-year-olds is "like living with drunk dwarves." Adult Joan doesn't arrive until act two, and despite Jillian assuring her siblings Joan has promised to come, Gloria and Ruby are so envious of Joan's success (as she is the only sister who actually ended up as an entertainer) that they doubt her sincerity.

The most entertaining aspects of the play take place in 1955, when Veronica is doing her best Mama Rose in training her daughters to be the headlining stars she dreams they will become. The girls clearly have talent, producing lovely harmonies in performing snippets of songs as they ape their heroes, The Andrews Sisters. So slavishly has Veronica modeled the girls after that famous group that she has them reciting the obstacles Patti, Maxene, and LaVerne Andrews faced on their road to stardom to encourage them to soldier on in their quest. Sadly for the Webb Sisters, their mother doesn't seem to grasp that times–and musical tastes–have changed since their idols achieved their success.

Despite the cloud of mother's impending passing hanging over the proceedings, there are plenty of comic moments, especially from the character of Jack Larkin (Kyle Cameron), a vaudeville-style comedian with a spinning bow tie who tells terrible jokes so well we can't help but laugh. "A three-legged dog walks into a bar and says 'I'm lookin' for the man who shot my paw.'"

Butterworth has populated The Hills of California with a large cast (a baker's dozen), which opens up the scope of the play to include husbands and boarders of the guesthouse, but these ancillary characters also tend to diffuse the focus of the play, making it harder to concentrate on the core story of this admittedly powerful memory play. I'm not sure The Hills of California would suffer from a tighter focus on the daughters and their mother, abandoning the piano tuner, the vaudevillian, and Ruby's and Gloria's husbands and children. Cutting 20-30 minutes from the script wouldn't hurt, either.

Nonetheless, under the direction of Loretta Greco, the play moves relatively quickly, and the shifts in time are accomplished elegantly by the rotating set that moves smoothly between locations in the guesthouse and between the two eras portrayed.

When adult Joan finally appears, we see that she is both so much less a star than we expected and so much more wounded by her past than her sisters. Gloria, Ruby and Jillian seem at least to have moved on from any childhood traumas, even if they have left clearly visible scars. Joan, however, seems trapped in a sort of distaff Peter Pan sort of existence, living a seemingly carefree life that is sadly full of care.

As is the norm with Berkeley Rep, the performers are wonderfully skilled at drawing us into their world, allowing us to forget they are actors playing roles so we can focus on their characters as fully-rounded human beings. (Much credit to Jez Butterworth for creating fully three-dimensional personas for the actors to assume.) Although The Hills of California never really hooked me in, that's probably due more to personal taste than it is the quality of this clearly excellent production of a well-written drama.

The Hills of California runs through December 7, 2025, at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison Street, Berkeley CA. Shows are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays at 7:00pm, Thursdays-Saturdays at 8:00pm, with matinees Wednesdays at 1:00pm, and Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00pm. There is an additional matinee Thursday, December 4 at 1:00pm. Tickets range from $25-$140. For tickets and information, please visit www.berkeleyrep.org, or call the box office at 510-647-2949.