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The 2024 Broadway play The Hills of California interweaves two deeply resonant archetypal stories: daughters grappling with the emotional complexities surrounding their mother’s imminent death and their memories of growing up in the shadow of a widowed mother’s unmet dreams. These narratives tap into powerful themes of family, memory and the interplay between personal aspirations and familial obligations, offering rich emotional terrain for audiences to explore.
As the daughters confront their mother’s mortality, they are forced to process unresolved regrets, lingering frustrations and years of conflict. This story is archetypal because it mirrors a common pattern of familial reckoning: the recognition that time is finite and that relationships, however fraught, are precious. In the face of their mother’s death, the daughters must reconcile who their mother truly was, independent of their own expectations or resentments. The process of coming to terms with a parent’s humanity—flaws, strengths and unfulfilled desires—is a journey many audiences can relate to.
In today’s context, this narrative resonates particularly strongly as cultural attitudes around caregiving, aging and family dynamics evolve. With increasing attention on eldercare and the emotional labor required to navigate the end-of-life experience, audiences may see their own struggles and reflections mirrored in the play’s exploration of these themes. The daughters’ conflicting emotions—love and resentment, guilt and acceptance—highlight the emotional ambivalence often present in such relationships, offering a cathartic lens for viewers to process their own familial bonds.
The daughters’ recollections of growing up with a widowed single mother reveal another powerful archetype: a parent who, deprived of the partnership and life she envisioned, projects her unfulfilled fantasies onto her children. This dynamic creates fertile ground for exploring the psychological impact of parental expectations on children’s identities.
For the mother, the daughters represent an opportunity to live vicariously, to channel her unrealized dreams into their lives. For the daughters, these projections can become both a source of inspiration and a heavy emotional burden, shaping their sense of self and straining their relationships with the mother they simultaneously seek to love and escape.
This narrative speaks to contemporary audiences as it reflects modern anxieties about identity, autonomy and the complexities of intergenerational relationships. Today, as societal norms around gender, family roles and personal ambition shift, many individuals find themselves re-evaluating the influence of parental expectations on their own paths. The play’s depiction of daughters navigating their mother’s fantasies and their own desires underscores the tension between honoring familial bonds and forging independent identities—a struggle that remains deeply relevant.
These dual narratives of grief and memory tap into existential human experiences while reflecting specific cultural and emotional challenges of the present. In an age of unprecedented connectivity and societal change, individuals often feel more fragmented and disconnected from their families and communities. Stories like The Hills of California remind audiences of the enduring significance of familial ties, even when those ties are fraught with conflict and misunderstanding.
The themes of processing grief and confronting the weight of inherited expectations also resonate in a time when traditional family structures are being re-examined. Many people are grappling with questions of how to care for aging parents, how to define their own lives in the face of generational legacies and how to navigate the emotional complexities of love, obligation and self-fulfillment.
Moreover, the play’s exploration of a widowed mother’s dreams and frustrations adds a feminist dimension that feels particularly relevant in today’s cultural discourse. It raises questions about how women’s aspirations have historically been constrained by societal roles and how those limitations ripple across generations. By examining how one woman’s unfulfilled dreams shape her daughters’ lives, the play prompts viewers to consider the intergenerational transmission of ambition, hope and regret.
The Hills of California uses archetypal storytelling to examine themes of anticipatory grief, memory and the complex interplay between familial love and personal identity. Its exploration of daughters coming to terms with a dying mother and their memories of her projections offers a poignant reflection on universal human experiences. At the same time, its resonance with contemporary anxieties about caregiving, generational legacies and gender roles ensures that it speaks powerfully to today’s audiences. By blending deeply personal stories with timeless themes, the play invites viewers to confront their own familial bonds and reflect on the ways in which love, regret and aspiration shape their lives.
For me, the play evoked quite mixed emotions. I found it a bit formulaic, overwrought and predictable, but well acted and quite moving nonetheless. For any of us who’ve watched other families grappling with a dying parent, the portrait the play presents rings true. To paraphrase Leo Tolstoy, all families facing the loss of a parent are alike. Rivalries resurface. Jealousies flare. Old wounds reopen. Resentments simmer. Fear of the inevitable looms large.
When I was a graduate student at Yale, theater was a central part of campus life, radiating intellectual and cultural energy. Each of the university’s 12 residential colleges boasted its own theater, underscoring the prominence of the arts within student life. At the heart of it all was Yale’s main theater, just a short walk from the library, serving as a vibrant cultural hub. The Yale Repertory Theatre, under the leadership of Dean Robert Brustein, was a beacon of daring and innovation, redefining what university-affiliated theater could achieve.
Yale Rep in the 1970s stood as a model of avant-garde regional theater, challenging conventional ideas about where groundbreaking productions could flourish. Brustein introduced American audiences to the likes of Harold Pinter and Bertolt Brecht, paving the way for experimental and intellectually provocative works that reverberated far beyond the campus. The theater’s close relationship with the Yale School of Drama created a symbiotic environment where students and professionals collaborated, fostering an unparalleled creative dynamism. The roster of talent nurtured during this time—including Meryl Streep, Wendy Wasserstein and Christopher Durang—solidified Yale Rep’s reputation as an incubator of dramatic excellence.
Theater’s vibrancy at Yale was emblematic of a broader intellectual and artistic energy on campus. It wasn’t just entertainment—it was a vehicle for grappling with societal issues, experimenting with form and pushing cultural boundaries. Students and faculty alike were drawn into this world, finding in theater a reflection of their own intellectual pursuits and a space for communal engagement.
Theater has become more marginal on college campuses today. Its diminished role can be attributed to several interrelated factors.
First of all, to shifting cultural priorities. In the 1970s, theater occupied a unique position in the cultural hierarchy, serving as a key medium for social critique and artistic innovation. Since then, other forms of media—especially film, television and digital content—have overshadowed theater as the dominant vehicles for storytelling and cultural commentary. Students today are more likely to engage with Netflix, TikTok or video games than with live theater, which demands both physical presence and sustained attention.
Theater is resource-intensive, requiring space, equipment and ongoing financial support for productions. As universities face mounting financial pressures, the arts are often among the first areas to experience budget cuts. This has led to fewer resources for student-run theaters and professional campus-affiliated companies, limiting opportunities for meaningful engagement with theater as an art form.
Theater thrives in an environment that values the humanities and liberal arts as central to education. However, many universities have shifted focus toward STEM fields, professional training and marketable skills, relegating theater and the arts to the periphery. This shift reflects broader societal trends that prioritize economic utility over cultural enrichment, making it harder to justify robust investment in theater programs.
Today’s students often juggle packed schedules filled with jobs as well as internships, research and extracurricular activities aimed at building their résumés. Participating in or attending theater productions, which require significant time commitments, may seem less practical or rewarding compared to other pursuits. In addition, students’ artistic energies are increasingly channeled into digital and multimedia projects rather than live performance.
In the 1970s, theater was a communal experience that brought students together. With the rise of individualistic and on-demand entertainment options, the communal aspect of theater has diminished. The shared experience of live performance, which once fostered a sense of connection and dialogue, is harder to replicate in an era dominated by personalized media consumption.
Theater at places like Yale thrived in part because it was a space for artistic risk-taking and intellectual experimentation. Today, many universities have become more risk-averse, wary of controversy or polarizing material that might alienate donors or provoke backlash. This shift has stifled the kind of bold, boundary-pushing productions that once characterized campus theater.
Theater’s retreat from the center of campus life is emblematic of broader cultural changes. Its decline reflects not just economic and institutional priorities but also a transformation in how we engage with art and ideas. Live theater, with its immediacy and intimacy, offers something that digital media cannot replicate: a sense of presence, community and shared human connection. Yet in a world increasingly mediated by screens, this unique quality has become harder to sustain.
Of course, theater has not disappeared from campuses. It has adapted to changing circumstances. Student-run productions, experimental black-box performances and socially conscious plays continue to engage pockets of university communities. However, the scale and influence of campus theater during the Yale Rep’s heyday under Brustein remain unmatched.
If theater is to regain its centrality, it will require a renewed commitment to the arts as integral to the intellectual and cultural fabric of university life. This means not only funding and institutional support but also fostering an environment where students are encouraged to see the arts as vital, not ancillary, to their education and their understanding of the world.
The stage has always been a classroom, where the complexities of human experience are enacted, dissected and shared. Theater’s ability to dramatize ideas and foster communal engagement makes it not only an art form but also an essential cultural and intellectual force on college campuses.
Through theater, students encounter the urgent questions of their time, grapple with timeless dilemmas and learn to see the world—and themselves—through new perspectives.
From ancient Greece to the modern university, theater has been much more than entertainment. It has served as a medium for exploring big ideas, confronting societal challenges and connecting diverse communities.
In Athens, tragedies by Sophocles and comedies by Aristophanes addressed moral quandaries, civic responsibilities and human frailty, offering audiences a space to reflect on the shared challenges of their society. On college campuses today, theater can fulfill a similar role, engaging students in critical conversations about power, identity, ethics and justice.
In an era when higher education increasingly prioritizes marketable skills, data-driven assessments and professional credentials, the arts—and theater in particular—offer something irreplaceable: a space for creative exploration, emotional engagement and collective storytelling. Theater encourages students to take intellectual and creative risks, to collaborate across disciplines and to confront the ambiguity and complexity of human life. These are not just soft skills but essential capacities for innovation, empathy and leadership in a rapidly changing world.
The stage is where ideas and emotions collide. On college campuses, theater can serve as both a mirror reflecting societal challenges—such as racial inequality, climate change and mental health crises—and a laboratory for imagining solutions. A performance might provoke difficult but necessary conversations, inspire thought or help students process collective trauma through shared catharsis.
Moreover, theater uniquely fosters community. The communal experience of live performance—sitting together in a darkened room, breathing the same air, reacting to the same moments—binds audiences in a way few other mediums can. On campuses, this communal aspect of theater can bridge divides between disciplines, demographics and ideologies, creating a shared cultural touchstone that brings students, faculty and staff together.
Elevating theater to a central place in college life requires rethinking its role not as a luxury or extracurricular diversion but as a core component of the intellectual and cultural mission of higher education. It means embedding theater into the curriculum, funding it as a vital campus resource and recognizing its power to transform students’ understanding of themselves and the world. By placing the arts—and the stage—back at the heart of university life, we affirm the enduring importance of creativity, collaboration and the exploration of human experience as essential to both education and society.
Theater, historically, has been a profoundly democratic art form, bridging social divides and engaging diverse audiences with ideas that matter. In ancient Greece, theater was central to civic life, with festivals like the Dionysia presenting tragedies and comedies that explored justice, leadership and morality. Works by playwrights such as Sophocles and Aristophanes tackled universal human concerns—fate, hubris and the nature of power—while speaking directly to the political and social issues of their time.
Similarly, in Shakespeare’s England, the stage served as a cultural crossroads where the elite and commoners alike gathered. The Globe Theatre’s groundlings stood shoulder to shoulder with nobility, united by the power of stories that captured the complexities of love, ambition and betrayal. Shakespeare’s plays transcended class lines, offering layered meanings that resonated with audiences from all walks of life.
In Molière’s France, theater became a platform for satire and social critique. His comedies, such as Tartuffe and The Misanthrope, entertained aristocrats while subtly challenging hypocrisy and moral corruption, making theater both an artistic and an intellectual force.
These historical examples underscore theater’s enduring ability to dramatize important ideas and convey them to a broad spectrum of society. On modern college campuses, theater can reclaim this democratic spirit by serving as a space where students from diverse backgrounds engage with universal themes and pressing contemporary issues, fostering both personal and collective growth.
To re-establish theater as a central component of university life, it must be elevated beyond its current status as an extracurricular activity. Instead, theater should be integrated into the intellectual, cultural and social fabric of the campus, fostering creativity, collaboration and critical engagement. Achieving this goal requires a multifaceted approach that revitalizes theater’s role in academic, community and cultural settings.
One of the most effective ways to embed theater into campus life is through its integration into the academic curriculum. Interdisciplinary courses can use theater as a lens to explore themes across history, literature, psychology, political science and even STEM fields. For instance, a course on Theater and Social Movements might examine how plays like A Raisin in the Sun and Angels in America have reflected and shaped societal change.
Applied theater projects can enhance public health courses by engaging students in creating performances that address health equity or mental health, making abstract issues more tangible and relatable. Similarly, performance-based learning in literature courses could involve students staging scenes from Shakespeare or Greek drama, transforming texts into living art.
The physical presence of theater on campus is crucial. Multipurpose spaces can accommodate a variety of theatrical forms, from traditional productions to experimental and interactive works. Theaters should also be centrally located on campus to symbolize their importance, much like Yale’s main theater near its campus center, which underscored the arts’ prominence within university life.
Thriving theater programs require consistent financial investment. Establishing endowments specifically for the arts can fund productions, visiting artists and scholarships for theater students. Providing stipends for actors, directors and technicians ensures that participation in theater is financially accessible to all. Subsidized or free tickets can further encourage attendance, fostering a campus culture where theater is a shared and valued experience.
Theater’s potential to bridge campus and community life is vast. Universities can collaborate with local theater companies to bring professional productions to campus, offering students mentorship opportunities. Open workshops in acting, directing and playwriting, accessible to both students and community members, can foster collaboration and mutual learning. Additionally, outreach performances in schools and community centers can emphasize theater’s role as an educational and cultural connector.
Empowering students to take ownership of their theatrical experiences is essential. Hosting annual student theater festivals provides a platform for showcasing original works, including plays, musicals and experimental performances. Cross-disciplinary collaborations, such as partnering theater students with those in engineering or media studies, can lead to innovations like digital stage design or multimedia storytelling. Playwriting competitions can encourage creativity by staging winning scripts, giving students the chance to see their visions come to life.
Theater thrives as a communal experience. Universities can enhance its social appeal by pairing performances with panel discussions, talkbacks or themed events. Pop-up performances in unexpected campus locations—dining halls, quads or dorm lounges—can engage students who might not otherwise attend formal productions. Programming that addresses diverse themes and features performers from all backgrounds ensures that theater reflects and resonates with the entire student body.
Inviting renowned artists to campus can generate excitement and elevate theater’s visibility. Residencies for actors, playwrights or directors allow students to learn directly from leading professionals. Collaborations with touring companies can bring Broadway productions, international works or avant-garde performances to campus, exposing students to a range of styles and traditions.
Technology offers innovative ways to expand theater’s reach. Universities can live-stream student productions, allowing alumni and remote audiences to engage with campus performances. Virtual reality theater can create immersive, interactive experiences that combine performance with cutting-edge technology. Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok can showcase behind-the-scenes content, interviews with cast members and promotional campaigns, attracting a digital-native audience.
When I was in elementary school, an urban public school, my classmates and I were required to memorize and recite a soliloquy. It was intimidating, but I still vividly remember the lines from Macbeth:
“Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?”
Why was this experience so meaningful?
For an elementary school student, grappling with Shakespeare’s language—with its unfamiliar vocabulary, intricate syntax and poetic rhythm—was a profound intellectual challenge. It went beyond rote memorization, demanding the decoding of meaning, the internalization of lines and an understanding of their emotional depth. This effort left a lasting impression, as it pushed us beyond our comfort zones and opened our minds to the richness of complex language and thought.
The soliloquy itself struck a deep chord. In these lines, Macbeth wrestles with uncertainty, ambition and the disorienting power of his own imagination. Even for young students, these emotions resonate—fear, doubt and the mystery of the mind are universal. The act of embodying these lines allowed us to explore emotions that felt larger than life, giving us a safe space to express vulnerability and connect with timeless human struggles.
Recitation was equally transformative. Standing before classmates to deliver Shakespeare’s words was both terrifying and exhilarating. It demanded courage, poise and the ability to command attention—skills that extended far beyond the classroom. Overcoming the fear of public speaking and succeeding in the performance built confidence and resilience, leaving us with a profound sense of accomplishment.
Finally, immersing ourselves in Shakespeare’s language and imagery was a gateway to imagination and wonder. Phrases like “a dagger of the mind” evoked vivid mental pictures and embedded themselves in memory. The poetic cadence and existential weight of the lines became touchstones—lasting reminders of language’s power to capture the complexities of the human experience.
These early encounters with Shakespeare offered a first glimpse into literature’s enduring beauty and relevance. The lines from Macbeth endure not just for their poetic brilliance but for the personal triumph of bringing them to life. They exemplify how art transcends time, speaking directly to us and through us, enriching our understanding of ourselves and the world.
This reflection also underscores the importance of integrating theater into education. Theater, with its unique ability to combine intellectual rigor and emotional depth, fosters creativity, inquiry and collaboration. It challenges students to grapple with complex ideas, confront societal issues and engage deeply with their peers.
By prioritizing theater as an essential part of the educational experience, campuses can restore its role as a space for dialogue, innovation and shared humanity. This investment ensures that students view the arts not as ancillary but as fundamental to their education, expanding their understanding of the world and their place within it.
