A FAMILY EPIC THAT EARNS ITS MILEAGE,
SPRAWL AND ALL

Family dynamics are always great fodder for drama. And when there are several children coming of age together in a household, it’s hard not to grow up with unspoken competitions for approval, success and love. More often than not at least one family member has to move out and start their own independent life away from their hometown.

Karen Killeen, front, with Amanda Kristin Nichols, Kyle Cameron and Aimee Doherty

The Hills of California, Jez Butterworth‘s new work now at Berkeley Rep in a co-production with The Huntington in Boston, isn’t just a simple story about sibling rivalries or missed opportunities. As with The Ferryman, it’s a sprawling, emotionally complicated meditation on how memory shifts depending on who’s telling it. The play’s ambition is both what makes it gripping and what occasionally makes it feel like a long haul—less a tidy story than a reckoning with how stories get told in the first place.

Mike Masters, Nicole Mulready, Meghan Carey and Chloé Kolbenheyer

We meet Veronica Webb and her four daughters in Blackpool, England, a seaside resort that once thrived before World War II but lost its luster in the television era of the 1950s. The story moves back and forth between 1955 and 1976. In the present, Veronica (Allison Jean White) is on her deathbed, suffering from stomach cancer, while her daughters return home—some out of duty, others out of guilt—to wait and to argue. The youngest, Jillian (Karen Killeen), has spent her life caring for her mother. Ruby (Aimee Doherty) and Gloria (Amanda Kristin Nichols) live nearby. The eldest, Joan, left twenty years earlier to pursue fame in America and hasn’t been heard from since. Whether or not she’ll show up is the question hanging over the reunion.

Amanda Kristin Nichols and Karen Killeen

Flashbacks take us to the mid-1950s, when the Webb family ran a seaside guesthouse and the girls performed Andrews Sisters numbers in hopes of being discovered. Veronica, a widowed mother with showbiz dreams for her daughters, pins her future on their talent. Dennis (Kyle Cameron) and a piano-playing lodger named Bill (Mike Masters) promise industry connections that could change their fortunes. But when an American talent scout (Lewis D. Wheeler) appears, things don’t go as anyone expects. Choices and sacrifices ripple across the decades.

Amanda Kristin Nichols, Karen Killeen and Aimee Doherty

Director Loretta Greco (the erstwhile artistic director of SF’s own Magic Theatre) draws strong, textured performances from her ensemble, many in dual roles who handle the time shifts with ease. Ms. White is remarkable in both her parts: as the younger, determined Veronica who sacrifices everything for her daughters, and, almost unrecognizable, as the older Joan who returns home transformed by the California dream. Ms. Killeen gives a tender portrayal of Jillian, a woman who stayed put, her own dreams packed away.

Allison Jean White and Meghan Carey

The sisters’ harmonies—guided by music director Daniel Rodriguez and choreographer Misha Shields—are among the show’s highlights, full of nostalgia and yearning. Andrew Boyce and Se Hyun Oh’s two-sided set, a detailed Blackpool guesthouse complete with tiki bar and jukebox, is grand yet homey. J. Jared Janas’s wigs and makeup vividly mark the shift from the mid-’50s to the polyester 1970s.

Meghan Carey, Kate Fitzgerald, Allison Jean White, Chloé Kolbenhyer, Nicole Mulready

At nearly three hours, the play is a hefty sit, and its constant toggling between decades sometimes dilutes momentum. But that’s part of the play’s fabric—it’s messy, layered, and extensive, much like the family at its center. Butterworth’s semi-autobiographical writing captures the way old wounds, rivalries, and regrets echo long after the music stops. Yet that very sprawl feels true to its subject: a family history too tangled to fit into one clean narrative. His script demands patience, but it rewards those who stay the course.

In the end, as the sisters share laughter, tears, and revelations, what emerges isn’t closure so much as understanding. Each woman sees the family story a little differently, and through that, sees herself. The Hills of California doesn’t resolve so much as it resonates—a meditation on regret, forgiveness, and the dreams that drive us away from home and pull us back again. It’s imperfect and overlong, but rarely dull—proof that even the most winding road can lead somewhere worth arriving.

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

photos by Liza Voll/Berkeley Rep and Huntington

The Hills of California
Berkeley Repertory Theatre
co-production with The Huntington Theatre Company
Peet’s Theatre, 2025 Addison Street, Berkeley
ends on December 7, 2025
for tickets ($25-$135), call 510.647.2949 or visit Berkeley Rep

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦