Degree Name

Department

English

College

Humanities

Defense Date

2025-03-05

Publication Date

2025-03-14

First Faculty Advisor

Wade Hollingshaus

First Faculty Reader

Kristin L. Matthews

Honors Coordinator

Aaron Eastley

Keywords

Utopia, Performance Studies, Theatre, Jez Butterworth, The American Dream

Abstract

Jez Butterworth’s 2024 play, The Hills of California, tells the story of the Webb sisters—Joan, Gloria, Ruby, Jillian—and their mother, Veronica, in 1950s and 1970s Blackpool, England. In 1976, it is the hottest summer on record in Blackpool, and Veronica is dying of cancer. Jillian, Gloria, and Ruby have gathered together to wait for her to die, with the hope that Joan (who has supposedly been living a fabulous life in America for 20 years) will come back to say a last goodbye to their mother. The play flips back and forth between the 70s and the 50s. We see Veronica training her young daughters to become Blackpool’s version of The Andrews Sisters, reaching for a kind of false utopia through the gloss of the American Dream. We also see the four sisters reunite and attempt to reconcile after experiencing deep betrayal by those who should have protected them. In this thesis, I examine how The Hills of California presents a vision for a better world. I examine the performances of this play using Jill Dolan’s concept of “utopian performatives” to understand how this story effectively prompts an audience towards hopeful change.