To quote director Michael Grandage about Lila Raicek’s new play My Master Builder, “It hasn’t ended up being a version or an adaptation or a translation of (Ibsen’s) The Master Builder. It feels more like a conversation with the original”.
In fact My Master Builder is basically a vehicle for some A-listers: Ewan McGregor (film), Elizabeth Debecki (TV) and Kate Fleetwood (stage). Set on July 4th in the plush, expensive, A-lister, very rich Hamptons on Long Island, the escape hatch for very rich New Yorkers, McGregor plays Henry Solness a “starchitect” (whoever thought of that must be very pleased with themselves) who has just rebuilt an old whaler’s chapel where it turns out there has been a terrible tragedy involving his son, ten years earlier. His wife Elena (Fleetwood) is throwing a party in their nearby house to celebrate the finishing of the work on the chapel and has chosen the guests very carefully. One of them is Mathilde (Debecki), who is now a journalist but turns out to have been a student of Henry’s ten years earlier, when she was just twenty and something inappropriate had happened between them. The other characters in the play are another architect, Ragnar (David Ajala) and Elena’s assistant Kaia (Mirren Mack), who’s been having a fling with Ragnar – it’s all very incestuous.
Surprisingly, with all these A-listers on board, the real star of the show is Richard Kent’s semi-abstract glass and steel representation of the chapel, which seems to reach up into the heavens. It then slides off, and behind it is the home of Henry and Elena, which once again is more representational than real and looks out onto the horizon. This wonderful set overshadows the performers at times as they’re a group of self-centred narcissists who never get the audience’s empathy, as whilst they’re all going through existential problems and traumas, they’re just not sympathetic or likeable. The performances from McGregor, Debecki and Fleetwood are fine, but to call the youthful-looking McGregor “old and wizened” is pushing it a bit, as does the reference to him losing his hair – most men would die for a head of hair like his!
The real problem with the play is that it’s all a bit dull and grandiose and Grandage’s direction is a bit flabby – too much tell and not enough show. It touches on a lot of subjects such as sexual politics, how we deal with terrible grief and the relationship between a teacher and his pupil but it just touches on them, never examines them in any depth and it never really engages the audience that seemed desperate to find lines that are funny even when they aren’t. It’s all a bit contrived and at times, the dialogue laborious and leaden.
These days, audiences seem desperate to give performers, especially A-listers, a standing ovation at the end. Last night’s audience, apart from a very few, didn’t, and they stayed seated as the cast took their bows. Like the preposterous end of the play (spoiler alert) it all fell a bit flat.
Review by Alan Fitter
On the eve of July 4th in the Hamptons, Elena Solness, a publishing magnate, is preparing to throw a party to celebrate her architect husband, Henry Solness, as he unveils his latest masterpiece. Their already vulnerable union is shattered by the unexpected arrival of Mathilde, a former student of Henry’s, with whom he previously shared an intimate connection. As the evening unfolds, each find themselves face to face with a reckoning that indelibly tilts the axis of their lives.
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Elizabeth Debicki, Kate Fleetwood, David Ajala, Mirren Mack
Writer: Lila Raieck
Director: Michael Grandage
Set and Costume Designer: Richard Kent
Lighting Designer: Paule Constable
Sound Designer and Composer: Adam Cork
Casting Director: Sophie Holland CSA
MY MASTER BUILDER
Wyndham’s Theatre
17 April to 12 July 2025
