Hills of California review: A cutthroat new stage mother on Broadway

Two hours and 45 minutes with one intermission.At the Broadhurst Theater, 235 W 44th St.Perhaps the city should rename West 44th Street Stage Mother Way.Between 7th and 8th Avenues at the Majestic Theatre, Audra McDonald will soon begin playing that most ferocious of performer parents, Mama Rose, in a revival of the musical “Gypsy.” And next door at the Broadhurst, where Jez Butterworth’s new play “The Hills of California” opened on Sunday night, lives her stern British counterpart, Veronica Webb.Like Rose, single mom Veronica forces her four daughters in Blackpool, England, to learn the ins and outs of show business in pursuit of finally escaping their shabby lives spent running a dingy hotel. Both women are morally off-balance, and decide that sacrificing their children’s innocence for fame is worth the risk.But there is a key difference.

While deep down Mama Rose is all about No.1 — “for me… and for you!” — naive Veronica earnestly believes a music career will save her girls from wallowing in the same dissatisfying life she did.Sorry, not gonna happen.We know because Butterworth’s play, directed by Sam Mendes, begins in 1976, when the Webb sisters are harried adults and mothers themselves — resentful, stuck and gathered together on the night that elderly Veronica will die of cancer.Suffice it to say, Butterworth’s compelling drama starts sad and only gets sadder. It’s not the playwright’s best (that’s “Jerusalem,” which Mark Rylance was explosive in on Broadway) or his grandest (that’d be “The Ferryman”).

But “Hills” has an appealing haunted atmosphere, even if the ghosts aren’t specters, but traumas.And in its dreamy third act, the play distinguishes itself from the many, many dramas about kids caught in the web of their parent’s pipe dream. The helpless flies are Gloria (Leanne Best), Ruby (Ophelia Lovibond) and Jill (Helena Wilson), who descend on the Sea View Hotel, a chintzy establishment with a tiki...