Sam Mendes directs on Broadway

Jez Butterworth’s ambitious, captivating and hugely rewarding family drama The Hills of California moves between two worlds of dream and reality, oscillating between two crucial periods in the lives of the Webb women.

Although this tightly packed, 17-actor piece is more family-focused in its themes than Butterworth’s earlier, breathtaking epics “Jerusalem” and “The Ferryman” as well as “The Hills of California” – also directed by Tony-winning Sam Mendes The award-winning film “Ferryman” also attracts social attention because it describes women with limited opportunities and many obstacles in an ever-changing world.

In the mid-1950s, Veronica Webb (Laura Donnelly), a disciplined but caring mother, trains her young teen and tween daughters to form a singing and dancing quartet reminiscent of the style and song list of ’40s girl group The Andrew Sisters remembered. But 20 years later, the four-part harmonies have long since fallen silent as the emotionally damaged sisters gather in their parents’ home to watch over their dying mother.

The piece fluctuates between the two time periods and begins in the late 1970s during a debilitating heat wave. The unmarried Jill (Helena Wilson), who has remained in the house with her dying mother, awaits the arrival of two of her siblings, Ruby (Ophelia Lovibond) and Gloria (Leanne Best). A fourth sister, Joan (also played, transformatively, by Donnelly), left home to pursue a career as a musician in the United States and has lived estranged from the family for two decades. What led to the family split and the question of Joan’s uncertain return hovers over the proceedings as the disappointed daughters exchange memories, grievances and heartache.

Designer Rob Howell has created a revolving play space that depicts the guest house’s public parlor on one side – with Veronica’s desperate efforts to attract customers (a broken jukebox, a faded tiki bar) – and the private kitchen on the other Family. But Howell has also added a dark, foreboding multi-story structure that looms large (and is hauntingly lit by Natasha Chivers) and features a series of long staircases leading to guest rooms named after US states – another reminder of American dreams.

But flashbacks to happier times reveal a family full of resilience, humor and courage, as well as a clever and resourceful mother raising her daughters alone and determined to see them escape the dead-end life in the English seaside town of Blackpool and the fading guest house that lies (and where the family lives), incorrectly called “The Seaview”.

But times and tastes have changed, and only one daughter has fled her decaying hometown for the illusory freedom of the Golden State, as promised in the Johnny Mercer song they sing – and which gives the piece its title ( “The hills of California are waiting for you”).

Music for the Webbs is more than a means of potential independence; It’s also a refuge, as Veronica tells her young daughters: “A song is a place you can be…a place you can live…and you can go anywhere.”

Some may recognize echoes of “Gypsy” – coincidentally, soon to be revived on 44th Street. After all, both stories are about stage mothers who are forces of nature, although Veronica’s girls are not proxies for their own thwarted dreams. Yet in their ambitious quest to make each of their girls a star, both mothers make shocking moral decisions that upend their relationships.

Although the play received positive reviews for its West End premiere earlier this year, Butterworth has since streamlined the work, particularly the cluttered ending – and all for the better, making it more efficient and satisfying.

However, the focus remains on the women and their stories, and the series still features rich and complex roles for actresses. The men here are more marginal figures who illuminate or comment on the world of women: a male lodger who demonstrates Veronica’s strength; another with showbiz connections to provide a plot twist; a piano tuner for display and Gloria and Ruby’s accommodating husbands to reflect their marital dynamic. (However, two children who are briefly seen are superfluous characters who only further extend the considerable running time.)

As in “The Ferryman,” Mendes once again leads a finely tuned ensemble. Wilson’s Jill reveals more beneath the surface than her dutiful personality suggests; Lovibond gives a sad subtext to the beaming Ruby, the peacekeeping sister prone to panic attacks; And in Best’s sharp-tongued Gloria, this daughter’s long-simmering resentments and deep wounds cannot be hidden.

David Wilson Barnes is also coolly nuanced as a showbiz agent. The younger versions of the women (Nancy Allsop, Nicola Turner, Sophia Ally) all radiate exuberance and talent, while Lara McDonnell is particularly compelling as the younger incarnation of Joan, deftly expressing and making the exceptionalism of this clever, rebellious and self-possessed daughter makes it clear that she is not only Veronica’s favorite, but also her mirror.

But it’s Donnelly — who received a Tony nomination for “The Ferryman” — and her dual roles here that ground the play and give it its resonance. Her adult Joan is the perfect image of one of Laurel Canyon’s lost dreamers – a person with a deliciously lazy sense of humor. As Veronica, Donnelly is complex: loving, scary and heartbreaking, as she ultimately reveals a mother’s troubling desperation that leads to a tragic end as dreams and realities collide in a song no one wants to live in.