The sun illuminated each delicate strand as the arachnid labored.
I guess I better warn ya, cause youll lose your heart.
Have you heard of Elvis Presley?
FAMILY TIESThe cast ofHills of California,which opens on Broadway this month. From left: Helena Wilson, Ophelia Lovibond, Leanne Best, and Laura Donnelly (in costume).Sittings Editor: Gerry O’Kane.
asks a talent scout bang out who shows up to assess the girls.
I dont know what that is, she replies.
There seemed to be something raw about him, Mendes says.
CALIFORNIA DREAMINGPlaywright Jez Butterworth (at left) and his friend and collaborator, Sam Mendes, who will directHills of California. Both wearing Hermès.
And there still is.
And he was like, Oh yeah, I brought that for Sam.
Butterworth told him it was his new play, that he should have a look.
I was like, Fuck, Ill read that.
It wasnt the act of a friend.
It was because I wanted to know what Jez Butterworth was writing next.
Very few writers provide you with a fully created and a fully imagined world, says Mendes.
And by which I mean not imagined onstage, but offstage as well.
It was just shouting from the page, who these people were, says Lovibond.
Im on morning coffee duty and cooking tea when she gets home.
But she doesnt come back and throw the tea cups around and complain.)
In this way, he built the family inHillsfrom memory.
If you wanted to get peoples attention, he says, your material had to be good.
WithHills,he wanted to get at the varied ways that children can experience the death of a parent.
One of them was Move along, nothing to see.
And one of them was absolutely devastated.
Equally important is what our parents do to us while theyre alive.
Does this chime with your experience?
I can see that there was at best a lack of responsibility.
And a blurring of lines that we today now know as inappropriate, she says.
And I feel like Ive been very lucky.
I have not been on the sharp end of that in my career.
I kind of had already turned myself into a human car alarm, she says, joking.
I had made myself the promise that I would never ignore my intuition.
I had done it before, and it had cost me dearly.
She speaks of reassuring conversations on these issues that shes had with a younger castmate.
That actor, she said, felt permission to point out what she felt wasnt right.
Im angry about it and its not okay.
She was so clear.
And I was like, Goddamn, were doing something right.
It is a play that asks a lot of its performers.
But they are also approaching this new outing with excitement for what audiences will get to experience.
Jezs work is particular and universal, says Wilson.
We are bringing what feels to us like quite a niche world, but actually its not.
Produced by The Arcade Production.
