My Master Builder is playwright Lila Raicek’s modern twist on Ibsen’s classic piece The Master Builder. The production I saw was at Wyndham’s Theatre on the West End directed by Michael Grandage. While I had high hopes coming into it, especially after seeing a wonderful adaptation earlier this week of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I was quickly disappointed. In my opinion, this production is a how-not-to for adapting older texts into the modern day.
The script itself leaves much to be desired. Raicek’s goal with this adaptation was to center the women in this story, and while I do appreciate that, the impact was thoroughly underwhelming. Firstly, whether she wants it to or not, the events of this play do surround a man. In the original work, Halvard Solness is an accomplished architect who is past his prime. He struggles with the idea of passing down his business to the younger and equally talented Ragnar. He is arrogant and, honestly, a bit delusional at times. Compare this to the men seen onstage in My Master Builder. Instead of being an apprentice, Ragnar’s character is turned into an already successful social media architect who designs whatever will give him the most clout. This already takes away from Solness’ (in this production, Henry’s) internal battle. Add to that a performance, done by Ewan McGregor, that holds none of the passion of the original character, and the audience is left with a shell of a once complex character.
Speaking of a loss of complexity, part of what is so compelling in Ibsen’s play is the way that the women manipulate from behind closed doors. While not a feminist work in the sense of the word now (that of first and second and third wave), Ibsen’s play contains powerful women who are, though underhandedly, in control of their own destinies. On the other hand, the women portrayed in My Master Builder are rather vapid and not quite self possessed. I was hoping that this modern woman-centric take would lead to a moment of reckoning where these women would all come together and understand that Henry was the villain in their stories and that blaming one another was a pointless exercise that plays directly into the patriarchy. Instead we see Hilda (Elizabeth Debicki), Henry’s former student with whom he had an affair, fall right back into their unhealthy power dynamic while trying to seduce him. A side note – there was almost no chemistry to speak of between the two onstage; all of the intimacy choreography seemed just to be choreography. Elena (Kate Rockwood), Henry’s wife, is portrayed as an antiquated anti-feminist woman who is so caught up in her own grief that she has become hard and cruel. Rockwood’s portrayal, however, was one of the best parts of the production. She gave Elena a depth and complexity that no other character on that stage possessed.
One other stellar part of the production was the set design. Upon arriving in the theatre, the audience is met with a floor of brick covering the stage. Set starkly against this is an incredibly modern and angular glass structure with a staircase leading up above the top of the proscenium. We learn in the first few lines of the play that this is Henry’s most recently finished building. This structure then flies out to reveal the interior of the couples’ Hampton home that is equal parts antiquated and modern. The set design was the only part of this production that did what I was hoping to see – a perfect marriage of a story from long ago melding beautifully with the stories of now.
Theatre in London U of A 