"There is special providence in building a family band. There have been many from the Beach Boys to the Pointer Sisters, Lennon Sisters and McGuire Sisters, among others. Yet before all of them existed, three sisters named LaVerne, Maxene and Patty took American by storm during the World War II era, known to the masses as the Andrews Sisters. In Jez Butterworth's sweeping epic The Hills of California, running at Berkeley Repertory Theatre through Dec. 7,"
"The Andrews Sisters are her blueprint, the group that ruled the 1940s with hits such as Beer Barrel Polka and Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, yet didn't make it out of the early 1950s. It was in the mid-1950s when the play's singing siblings, The Webb Sisters, were ready to take the musical baton and run with it. But Veronica's cruelty had left lasting damage on the daughters,"
"Director Loretta Greco has many entryways into the story. For one, she is the eldest of five sisters. And like the Webb sisters, Greco knows the various rituals that come with processing a parent passing. It was interesting to me how slippery the truth is and how one person's trauma can be carried by another, as well as how one person's joy and accomplishment can be carried by another,"
The play follows four Webb sisters whose mother Veronica envisions them achieving immortal fame modeled on the Andrews Sisters. Veronica's stern, often cruel parenting scars the daughters and derails their trajectories. Set partly in 1976, the sisters reunite at the guesthouse where their mother lies dying and confront old wounds and the realities of their adult lives. Director Loretta Greco, eldest of five sisters, draws on personal experience with parental death rituals. The production examines how truth and memory shift within families and how trauma, joy and accomplishment can be carried between relatives. Veronica appears as a nuanced, problematic figure balancing ambition and motherly intent.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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