Tag Archives: Jez Butterworth

“The Hills of California” at the Harold Pinter Theatre

With characteristic ambition and skill, playwright Jez Butterworth and director Sam Mendes have, surely, created another hit show. Following their work together on The Ferryman in 2017, this new piece can be regarded as a further meditation on storytelling, love and loyalty. It is grown-up, intelligent theatre that lives long in the mind.

The Hills of California is a family drama with four sisters reunited at their mother’s death bed. It’s a big play, as flashbacks show each woman at a younger age – and in the past we also see their mum, Veronica. Mendes and a talented cast make the action clear, the characters are all wonderful studies and the performances consistently good.

The girls, the Webb Sisters, are drilled as a singing and dancing troupe (think the Beverleys). But only one, Joan, gets a shot at fame in those titular, promised hills. The story behind this chance for success is dark. Butterworth flips effortlessly between ages, showing us dramatic events and their repercussions.

Nicola-Turner-Nancy-Allsop-Lara-McDonnell-Sophia-Ally-in-The-Hills-of-California-credit-Mark-Douet
Nicola Turner, Nancy Allsop, Lara McDonnell and Sophia Ally

There’s Jill and Ruby, timid in their youth, one staying at home and the other settling for a loveless marriage – roles that Helena Wilson and Ophelia Lovibond reveal with skill. Meanwhile, Gloria is bitter from the start, her anger lifelong, leading to a heart-wrenching performance from Leanne Best. And let’s not ignore other cast members who play the girls when they are young – Nancy Allsop, Sophia Ally, Lara Mcdonnell and Nicola Turner – who we see a lot, sound great and complement the leading roles superbly.

This is a fantastic ensemble, but the show belongs to Laura Donnelly, who plays the mother in earlier scenes and then the prodigal Joan. So, we get to see the formidable stage mother and her main victim portrayed by the same performer. The nuance Donnelly brings to both women is a fitting tribute to Butterworth’s script, complete with uncomfortable suggestions about how cold and cruel both are. There’s a danger of Donnelly taking over – at times the show feels like a showcase for her – but she gives not one but two amazing performances.

The setting – Blackpool in the late 1970s – is vividly evoked and provides a lot of humour. An interest in working-class characters is a key part, for me, of what makes Butterworth’s work stand out. And Butterworth manages better than most to get laughs without coming across as patronising. There are problems with the male roles, which are, surprisingly, close to poor. In the past, a sinister talent scout and a down at heel comedian are flat. In the 1970s, there is a better role for Sean Dooley as Gloria’s husband. But all the men make the play feel baggy.

Maybe it’s that the storytelling the men instigate (be it tales of celebrity or how a juke box works) aren’t that interesting. Or that the men don’t sound as good! Songs tell us a lot here – shared aspirations and then family memories – and they are incorporated superbly and with remarkable confidence by Mendes. Putting so much music in the production is a brilliant move. Mrs Webb describes songs as places – they are a source of promise, providing a hopeful heart to the play, and an optimistic conclusion, despite the past.

Until 15 June 2024

www.hillsofcaliforniaplay.com

Photos by Mark Douet

“The Ferryman” at the Gielgud Theatre

Superstar playwright Jez Butterworth’s latest drama was a hit before it even opened: the West End transfer was announced simultaneous to its sell-out opening at the Royal Court and a new cast will soon take the show into 2018. This long harvest day’s journey into tragedy is the story of the Carney family, farmers in Northern Ireland whose connections with the IRA haunt them. This is a big family drama – and not just due to the size of the household, but because of Butterworth’s exquisite writing.

There’s a luxurious feel to the show – although this is a working-class world – created by Rob Howell’s design and director Sam Mendes, who resists the temptation to rush a single moment. Three hours is a long running time for a new play, but every minute holds you. Above all, a huge company, including some extraordinary younger performers, are awe-inspiring. It really shouldn’t be possible to have so many characters so clearly delineated by their own compelling stories.

There’s a lot of laughter in the family, a real sense of warmth, and not a few Irish stereotypes. This has been commented on by Sean O’Hagan, better qualified than myself. To be sure, there’s a lot of whisky drinking and some gags around children swearing seem cheap, if effective. But the stories told, swirling around the discovery of a murdered family member’s body, broaden the play’s themes beyond the Troubles.

Myth and history populate the play. The past preoccupies Aunt Maggie Far Away, “visiting” from her dementia, and obsesses Aunt Pat, whose brother died in the Easter Rising: two brilliant roles engendering stunning performances from Bríd Brennan and Dearbhla Molloy respectively. Meanwhile Uncle Pat has plenty of anecdotes while, with another strong performance from Des McAleer (pictured top), enforcing the play’s theme of death, which escalates with such foreboding.

Tom Glynn-Carney
Tom Glynn-Carney

There’s a point to all the marvellously crafted yarns – The Uses of Story Telling, if you’re looking for a dissertation title. The tales form a link to violence inherited by the young. A terrific scene with four youths, led with febrile energy by Tom Glynn-Carney, shows them captivated by accounts of IRA leader Mr Muldoon (Stuart Graham) and the 1981 hunger strikers. In the shadows (there’s plenty of eavesdropping in this play – stories morph into rumour and hearsay, after all) is an even younger “wean”, skilfully depicted by Rob Malone, who is driven to desperate measures.

Laura Donnelly and Genevieve O’Reilly
Laura Donnelly and Genevieve O’Reilly

At the heart of the play is a love triangle that leads to star performances. A repressed affair between the play’s patriarch Quinn, performed with charming assurance by Paddy Considine, and his bereaved sister-in-law Caitlin, a role Laura Donnelly articulates marvellously, leads to some of the best dialogue. Although appearing relatively late, Quinn’s wife Mary is given her due through Genevieve O’Reilly’s quiet performance. The unrequited emotions of all three create an unusual love story that thrums with excitement. As Quinn’s IRA past rears its head with a tension that would please any thriller writer, Mendes’ strengths shine. The fear of what might come next hangs over the final hour of the show. Butterworth manages to juggle all this with enviable dexterity, producing a work of complexity and popular appeal.

Until 6 January 2018

www.TheFerrymanPlay.com

Photos by Johan Persson

“Mojo” at the Harold Pinter Theatre

Jez Butterworth’s play, Mojo, was a huge hit in 1995 for the Royal Court and its revival at the Harold Pinter Theatre is a welcome event. The première work from a playwright destined for huge success, it’s set in gangland Soho in the late 1950s, with the owner of a nightclub and would-be music promoter murdered. Menace is continually offset by ineffectual gangsters, and then reinjected by mental instability and manic tension. It’s a playwright’s script, full of inspiration from modern masters, with the language poetically reflecting the new craze for rock and roll. A fine plot, superb characters and serious comedy secure wide appeal. There’s high drama, breathtaking suspense and laughs out loud from a sense of humour that is darkly, madly, deeply funny.

Daniel Mays (Potts) and Rupert Grint (Sweets) in Mojo. Photo credit Simon Annand
Daniel Mays and Rupert Grint

For this revival, the focus is sure to be on a stellar cast. And they don’t disappoint. Brendan Coyle takes time off Downtown Abbey to play the man ready to step into his assassinated boss’s shoes, claiming possession of the club while trying, and failing, to control his staff. He has to deal with Sweets and Potts, a pill-popping double act played by Rupert Grint, of Harry Potter fame, who makes a fine West End debut and can’t be blamed for being upstaged by the excellent Daniel Mays, who has the audience in the palm of his hand. It’s just as hard to ignore rising star Colin Morgan who gives a superb performance as another employee. In common with his colleagues, Morgan shows the thin skin underneath the machismo and how these men see the club, with all its power politics, as a home and family as well as career.

But it is Ben Whishaw who is the real star of the night. In the role of Baby, abused son to the murdered owner, and a damaged character who bursts into song and runs around with a sword, he manages to make both activities just as frightening. It’s his finest performance since Hamlet back in 2004 and makes you ponder about connections between the two plays. Avoiding plot spoilers, it’s fair to say something is rotten with the state of the nightclub and, if this insane heir-apparent isn’t indecisive, the court politics and innocent victims ring bells. It’s a resonance that indicates how rich Butterworth’s play is – concerning men, their place in the world and with one another, that run deep. This Mojo is box-office magic that lives up to expectations and really is as good as it sounds.

Until 8 February 2014

Photos by Simon Annand

Written 16 November 2013 for The London Magazine