California
Sam Mendes directs the new play from the legendary Jez Butterworth
Jez Butterworth’s first play in seven years unfurls with the richness and depth of a well-crafted novel.
Backed by West End super producer Sonia Friedman, ‘The Hills of California’ has a level of resource behind it that would probably fund whole seasons at his alma mater the Royal Court, where his previous works have premiered. But by heck the ‘Jerusalem’ playwright – and his big-name director Sam Mendes – know how to put those resources to work.
Initially it’s pretty much a kitchen sink drama, following a fractious group of sisters: the Webbs. In the sweltering summer of ’76, they have reunited at their childhood home: a Blackpool guest house somewhat ambitiously called Seaview (it doesn’t have a sea view).
The occasion is the imminent death of their mother Veronica, unheard and unseen upstairs, rotting away in the final stages of stomach cancer. It begins with a conversation between square, stay-at-home daughter Jill (Helena Wilson) and Penny (Natasha Magigi), a nurse who offers to put the family in touch with a doctor willing to end Veronica’s pain. Jill is interested, but won’t do it until her sisters arrive, two of whom duly do: blunt, pragmatic Gloria (Leanne Best) and fiercely witty Ruby (Ophelia Lovibond).
The final sister is Joan: we don’t know anything about her, except she apparently lives in America now. Her plane is delayed, and Jill is adamant they put any mercy killings on ice until her arrival.
Unexpectedly, the second scene sees ‘The Hills of California’ shift from ‘70s period drama to a ‘50s one, as a second cast comes in and we meet the girls – including Joan – as children, now under the watchful eye of the ambitious younger Veronica (Laura Donnelly). She wants more for her kids than Blackpool, and is coaching them as a vocal harmony group in the hope they’ll hit the big time. And they might: they’re impeccably drilled, and their harmonies are glorious.
Without wishing to get into spoiler territory, it’s a drama about the pain and joy and complicatedness of family, that centres on the gradually unfurling, never unambiguously resolved mystery of what precisely went down between Veronica and the younger Joan.
Butterworth writes – and Mendes directs – with a deft, novelistic fluidity, as the story flits from one period to another. Tangents are taken. New characters are woven in at daringly late junctures. It’s increasingly dense and charged.
Butterworth for the most part writes the Webbs wonderfully: smart, tough, vulnerable women left in different shades of disarray over a childhood dream that never came to be. They feel like tangible, real beings, grounded in a world in which the men are largely absurd background figures – weak husbands like Bryan Dick’s hapless Dennis, or Shawn Dooley’s infuriating Mr Halliwell, an unreconstructed weirdo who can communicate only in bad jokes.
The performances are uniformly tremendous, notably Lovibond’s quicksilver Ruby and Best’s pained, angry Gloria. There is first-rate accent work: enormous respect to dialect coach Danièle Lydon for thoroughly indoctrinating her largely non-Lancastrian cast. And there’s stunning work from designer Rob Howell: the main set is simply the living room of the guesthouse, but there is something profoundly haunting about the towering, almost Escher-like set of stairs that erupts from it, a conduit from the humdrum downstairs to the unseen realm of death that hovers in the wings.
What makes the show, though, is Donnelly. Yes, she probably didn’t have to audition for this one – she’s Butterworth’s wife – but I don’t think anyone’s going to complain. As Veronica, she’s tightly wound but tender: a complicated ball of conflicted feelings. She’s undoubtedly something of a momzilla. But her desire to see her daughters perform feels motivated by pride, love and hope they’ll have a better life than she did. She is driven, but her ambition is for them, not herself – which causes her to make a catastrophic decision that scars the family forever.
But Donnelly also has a second role, as the adult Joan. To be intentionally vague about something that happens late, she is now greatly changed from the perky girl in the ’50s. After an astonishing entrance scene, Donnelly’s otherworldly presence as Joan electrifies a show that palpably builds in power and ambition as it goes. ‘The Hill of California’ threatens to climax with the same sort of stunning metaphysical eruptions that crowned ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘The Ferryman’.
Unfortunately, Butterworth fumbles the plot a little at the end. While his female characters are wonderful, what actually happens to them can feel cliche-bound, based on a distinctly pulpy view of the female experience. Again, I’m not going to spoil. But a big late revelation about one of the sisters feels disappointingly cheap and even silly; ‘The Hills of California’ ends on a stumble (even if the final image is beautiful).
‘Jerusalem’ is still more or less reckoned to be the best play of the twenty-first century so far – the bar is set absurdly high for a new Butterworth work. If it’s not faultless writing, I’d still say ‘The Hills of California’ handily clears that bar. The cast and director and the blank cheque from Sonia Friedman help. But Butterworth remains a one-off, a man who can write plays about ordinary people that carry the charge of the great tragedies.
California GOP delegates Roxanne Hoge and Elizabeth Barcohana join Trace Gallagher to discuss multiple issues impacting California.
California GOP delegates Roxanne Hoge and Elizabeth Barcohana dissect the state’s pressing issues with Trace Gallagher. They criticize the SF Giants’ ‘Pride Night’ controversy and players’ right to religious expression. The delegates also discuss Los Angeles’s economic decline and Sacramento’s expensive homeless campsite, highlighting concerns about over-regulation and social issues. They conclude by addressing California’s large-scale Medicaid fraud, suggesting a lack of accountability.
Oakdale’s first Pride event is moving forward this weekend after organizers changed venues following pushback over its original location and a planned drag performance.
Some residents pushed back over the event’s original location at Dorada Park and a planned drag performance.
“I also understand staff has issued a permit for a so-called Pride event,” one speaker said during the latest City Council meeting.
Another speaker raised concerns about the event being advertised as open to all ages, including children, and having a drag queen host.
After the public pushback, organizers moved the event indoors to the Bianchi Center.
“It was a huge upgrade to be able to provide a more accessible space in the heart of Oakdale,” said Ryan Hall, president of CalPride.
Hall said the idea to bring Pride to the city did not come from outside Oakdale, it came from people living there.
“That’s my place as a mom of rainbow kids, absolutely,” said Elizabeth May, owner of Sisters Coffee.
May’s coffee shop hosts a monthly LGBTQ+ social.
“I had a young man walk in here and say, ‘We don’t have anywhere to have a social here for LGBTQ.’ I said, ‘Heck yes,’” May said.
Still, the backlash has left parents like May concerned.
“How does it feel? Scary. I’m excited, but as a mom of a kid in the community, I’m nervous for them,” May said.
May said the venue change helped ease some of the tension.
“The different venue made a win-win situation for everyone. I was very proud of the kids for making that hard decision,” May said.
For organizers, the drag performance is part of the celebration.
“Enjoy some line dancing, enjoy some live music, enjoy the drag show, and then also enjoy community members and our local businesses, our local artists and partner organizations,” Hall said.
Oakdale Pride is scheduled for Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Entry is free.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is considering a run for president as he approaches the end of his term, called for a national “billionaires’ tax” on Friday even as he fights another proposal targeting the wealthy in his home state.
Newsom also said the U.S. government should own a stake in artificial intelligence companies. His proposals, outlined in a Substack post, aligns him with the Democratic Party’s populist left, and he argued that urgent changes are needed to prevent the elite concentration of wealth and power from undermining democracy.
“It’s time for an economic reset for America,” Newsom wrote.
The governor announced his agenda a day after an influential health care union in California pledged to go forward with a ballot measure that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the assets of billionaires living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026.
Newsom opposes that measure, as do many of the liberal interest groups that typically favor higher taxes. They fear it would drive billionaires out of California, eroding the state’s tax base over the long term for a one-time influx of cash. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other state — a few hundred, by some estimates.
“You may not be able to pick up and move to Texas or Florida to shelter your income from taxation, but I promise you that billionaires can, and do,” Newsom wrote. “Wealth is movable, and it shops for the state with the lowest taxes. The fight belongs at the federal level, where this broken system was created in the first place.”
A minimum tax on large net worths
Newsom said the solution is a new national tax policy, rather than a state-by-state system. He proposed a minimum tax on anyone with a net worth above $100 million. He also wants to make it illegal for the wealthy to borrow against their stock portfolios to fund their luxury lifestyles tax free.
Newsom said there should be new rules for inheritance taxes, warning that “the transfer of wealth among the ultra-wealthy will lock in a permanent American aristocracy of inherited wealth.” And he wants to raise corporate tax rates to where they were before President Donald Trump’s first-term tax cut.
READ MORE: Sanders and Newsom clash over proposed tax on California’s billionaires
The need is especially urgent as artificial intelligence threatens to displace workers and further concentrate wealth, he wrote.
“We need to ensure every American owns a stake in the future being built by AI through a national public equity fund that takes a major stake in the new economy,” he wrote. “Simply, as artificial intelligence reshapes the country, every American should own a piece of the future it builds.”
Revenue generated by his proposals could be used to retrain workers, fund universal child care, make college free and increase funding for health care.
‘Money buys influence’
Newsom, who has drawn attention as one of Trump’s most high-profile political antagonists, is getting an early start on laying out a policy framework for his potential White House bid months before the midterm elections, which have typically marked the informal start of overt presidential campaigning.
WATCH: News Wrap: Newsom says Trump ordering DOJ to investigate him and wife
The embrace of a wealth tax by Newsom, a moderate on tax policy despite his liberal reputation, signals a notable shift in the political landscape since Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren struggled to get traction in her 2020 campaign, which she largely centered around a 2% levy wealth tax.
Newsom portrayed the nation’s tax code as a corrupt system built to help an elite few.
“Money buys influence, and influence rewrites the rules,” he wrote. “Those rewritten rules funnel even more wealth to the few. Under this weight, democracy itself starts to buckle.”
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