Ibsen wrote plays that were constructed like buildings—well-made, multilevelled and erected on the sturdy foundations of social realism. The increasingly popular practice of dismantling his works in the name of ‘modernisation’ thus always runs the risk of becoming something of a demolition job. My Master Builder by newcomer playwright Lila Raicek bravely attempts the task, but her writing lacks the structural control or depth of Ibsen’s original.
Expunging every inch of Victoriana, Raicek sets her play at an airy Hamptons beach house on the eve of a party. Star architect Henry Solness (Ewan McGregor) and his wife Elena (Kate Fleetwood), a publishing magnate, have gathered together friends to celebrate his latest design feat, an old Whalers’ chapel, and to memorialise the couple’s deceased son who perished in a conflagration some years earlier. But there’s an unexpected arrival in the form of Mathilde (Elizabeth Debicki), Henry’s ex-student and sometime lover, whose presence rouses past passions and ensures the evening’s fireworks aren’t just literal.
While much fanfare has been made about Ewan McGregor’s return to the stage after 17 years, regrettably he is miscast as Raicek’s wearying old architect. As Henry, he is the very picture of health, slickly alluring in his all-beige attire, and manoeuvring around the stage with youthful breeziness. There is no suggestion that Henry is trapped in an etiolated marriage, one where adultery is weaponised by Elena in a desperate bid to extract emotion. This is also problematic because Ibsen’s original play depends so much on the moral ambiguity of the age gap between the architect and his young lover (she is 13 at the time they first meet). Debicki’s nubile Mathilde and McGregor’s sprightly Henry lose this unsettling tension.
Where Raicek’s writing swells into life is in the character of Elena, embodied by Kate Fleetwood with great psychological acuity. Behind each of her confident gestures is fragility; behind her constant exertions of power is pain. Fleetwood’s infamous performance as Lady Macbeth is evoked in scenes where Elena exercises her serpentine tongue, threatening and coaxing in the same utterance. She refers to Mathilde as ‘disastrously beautiful’, a compliment that bitterly registers the threat she poses. Likewise, blackmail is couched as beneficence, for Elena promises to publish Mathilde’s debut novel, Master, only if she agrees to come out with a #MeToo exposé of her affair with Henry.
Certainly Raicek deserves some commendation for trying to flesh out Ibsen’s unusually thin female characterisations. But My Master Builder is certainly not a feminist play. Women are repeatedly shown tearing each other apart for male attention. Elena and her assistant (Mirren Mack) battle over up-and-coming architect Ragnar (David Ajala). Mathilde and Elena intentionally court the male gaze in slinky dresses. In fact, even in their bids for independence in their professional lives they remain emotionally enslaved. Elena abuses her power at work in order to punish her husband, and Mathilde’s existence, as the subject matter of her first novel attests, has been defined by Henry’s promise to see her again. One can hardly imagine any of Raicek’s women following in Nora’s footsteps and gathering the pluck to slam the door.
Yet the production excels in its fine details. The stage design by Richard Kent is truly transporting, marrying elegant wooden interiors with the glimpse of vast, wind-swept dunes. The setting conjures the strange sense of the isolation and barrenness that lies behind the social circus of the Hamptons. Paule Constable’s lighting design is used to great narrative effect, transitioning from an initial exposing glare suggesting secrets have no place to hide, to a dark blue wash evoking emotional tempests and clandestine sexual encounters.
Despite its inconsistencies, Raicek’s My Master Builder makes for an intriguing piece of theatre. Her writing follows Ibsen’s blueprint by interleaving personal and sociological observation with luminous poetry, yet she lacks her predecessor’s technical mastery.
My Master Builder
By Lila Raicek
Director: Michael Grandage
Photo credits: Ellie Kurttz
Cast includes: Ewan McGregor; Kate Fleetwood; Elizabeth Debicki; Mirren Mack; David Ajala.
Until: Saturday 12th July 2025
Running Time: 2 hours including an interval