Booked & Scene

Jez Butterworth’s The Hills of California, directed by Loretta Greco, is a sweeping family drama that kicks off The Huntington’s season with ambition to match its nearly three-hour runtime. The story centers on the Webb sisters, toggling between their youth in the 1950s and their reunion decades later at the Seaview Guest House. It’s a world full of longing, sacrifice, and secrets, where memories clash with realities and the line between ambition and exploitation blurs. The play asks what family, forgiveness, and truth mean when the past still has a chokehold on the present.

Hearts of the Hills

Allison Jean White is a marvel in dual roles, playing both Veronica, the mother who pushes her daughters toward stardom, and later Joan, the eldest daughter reflecting on the fallout of that ambition. The transformation is astonishing. As Veronica, she embodies a woman whose dreams are larger than her circumstances, her hunger for “more” radiating in every decision. She is both brittle and determined, a woman who wants more for her daughters than she ever had herself and who’s willing to compromise much in the process. Then, in Act Three, she reemerges as Joan, a daughter shaped by the very choices her mother made. The shift is so stark it’s almost disorienting, and it showcases her extraordinary range. Seeing White in this role feels like a rare treat, you’re watching two entirely different characters, each fully alive. Watching her move from a character clawing for her daughters’ futures to one reckoning with her own past is nothing short of breathtaking. She is, quite honestly, worth the ticket price alone.
Kate Fitzgerald as Young Joan is equally unforgettable. She commands the stage with biting humor, deep vulnerability, and vocals that soar even without accompaniment. She’s the leader of the sisters, wise beyond her years, and tasked with some of the most challenging material in the play. Fitzgerald captures both the sharpness and vulnerability of a young woman balancing leadership, defiance, and fear delivering it with remarkable honesty, never tipping into melodrama. Her performance lingers long after the curtain falls.

The Company They Keep

The Webb sisters as adults and children are brought to life with nuance by a strong ensemble. Karen Killeen’s Jillian feels relatable and grounded, her connection to her mother shaded with tenderness and frustration. Amanda Kristin Nichols’ Gloria is a live wire—her anger and sadness run deep, yet she uses perfectly timed comedy to puncture the heaviness. Aimee Doherty’s Ruby is quieter, the peacemaker of the group, and in that restraint she allows the sisterly dynamics to grow in sharper contrast.
Nicole Mulready as Young Jillian deserves special recognition. She carefully builds a foundation of mannerisms and quirks that seamlessly carry over into Karen Killeen’s adult portrayal. That kind of continuity is rare and made their shared character feel fully realized across decades.
And then there’s Lewis D. Wheeler, who slithers into the role of Luther St. John. He’s the kind of charming, slimy presence that makes your skin crawl in exactly the way it should. His performance adds just the right amount of menace.

Set the Scene (Literally)

HELLO, the set. Andrew Boyce and Se Hyun Oh’s design is nothing short of breathtaking. The Seaview rises before us as a fully realized, multi-level structure that rotates on a turntable, offering shifting perspectives throughout the show. It’s not just impressive: it’s alive, a character in its own right. I’ve often said The Huntington excels at set design (the house in Don’t Eat the Mangos comes to mind), but this may be their most ambitious yet.
Jennifer von Mayrhauser’s costumes deserve credit for their subtle storytelling. By aging down the younger sisters convincingly and creating a throughline into their adult counterparts, the costumes help make the time jumps feel seamless. Musical moments from the younger sisters provide bright flashes of joy, reminding us of a time when the Webb family’s future still shimmered with possibility. And while the play runs nearly three hours, the pacing rarely drags. For someone who often favors a tight ninety minutes, I found myself surprisingly absorbed, eager to see what the next turn of the guest house, both literal and metaphorical, would bring.

A Scenic Route That Took Too Long

That said, The Hills of California isn’t flawless. Butterworth’s reputation for long epics precedes him, and here it sometimes feels like length for length’s sake. Scenes stretch beyond what they need, and while the audience remains engaged, there’s a lingering question of whether everything we saw was essential.
The wigs also deserve mention, not for their success, but for how distracting they were. They didn’t feel natural or well-fitted, which pulled focus from otherwise strong performances.
More critically, some of the play’s most important plot points are oddly buried. They’re slipped into the middle of longer scenes or glossed over so quickly that it’s easy to miss them. For a show this long, where some material could arguably be trimmed, it’s frustrating to see pivotal revelations treated so casually. The result leaves the audience piecing together the puzzle without enough clarity to make the payoff satisfying.
Thematically, the play wrestles with family dynamics, trauma, forgiveness, and the unreliability of memory, all compelling ideas, but it doesn’t always bring fresh perspective. At times, it feels like we’ve been here before, in other plays, told in sharper ways. And perhaps the hardest truth for me: by the end, I wasn’t sure why I should care about these characters. They engaged me in the moment, but the resonance faded quickly once I left the theater. Why these characters, and why now? That question nagged at me more than anything.

Standing at the Overlook

Still, there’s no denying that The Hills of California makes for a striking season opener at The Huntington. The performances are strong across the board, with Allison Jean White and Kate Fitzgerald standing out in particular. The set is breathtaking, the ensemble is cohesive, and the story, though sprawling and imperfect, offers plenty of moments that grip. While I left with questions and a hunger for something more definitive, I can’t discount the power of seeing the Webb family brought to life in such a vivid, ambitious production. The Hills of California runs at The Huntington through October 12, 2025.

📸: Liza Voll