Review Roundup: What Did The Critics Make of MY MASTER BUILDER, Starring Ewan McGregor?

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.

Inspired by Ibsen, My Master Builder is a new play by Lila Raicek that lays bare the vulnerabilities we expose, when we leave ourselves open to love.

Ewan McGregor returns to the London stage, reuniting with director Michael Grandage, to lead the company.

What did the critics think?

My Master Builder is at Wyndham’s Theatre until 12 July

Photo Credits: Johan Persson

Aliya Al-Hassan, BroadwayWorld: It always raises eyebrows when a writer with no playwrighting experience gets to make their debut in the West End, and with such a starry cast. Lila Raicek may hold an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University, but her script is clunky and expositional at best. Lines such as “you look too beautiful to be real” should have been removed after the first draft and lead to several episodes of unintentional laughter from the audience.

Sarah Crompton, WhatsOnStage: The language constantly strives for the poetic but becomes impossibly stilted, leaving the actors making speeches at each other rather than interacting. McGregor in particular, making his return to the London stage after 17 years, seems desperately uncomfortable. Massively charismatic and in the past so fluent, here he is reduced to barking lines like orders, while Debicki has very little to do except gaze winsomely at him.

Sam Marlowe, The Stage: McGregor’s Henry ends up as little more than the fraying ball of wool batted about in the catfights, and Raicek saddles him with some truly toe-curling moments in his steamier encounters with Debicki’s coolly poised Mathilde. It’s Fleetwood who supplies the stellar turn here, by turns vengeful, maudlin and magnificent. I just wish she had something more flavourful and substantial to sink those sharp teeth into.

Andrzej Lukowski, TimeOut: Ultimately Raicek has created as many problems as she’s solved in trying to ‘fix’ the original story. Which is no reason not to do it, but her generally thoughtful look at power imbalance and the nature of infidelity lacks fireworks beyond the famous faces. It retains Ibsen’s wild ending, but when it comes it all feels a bit unearned.

Clive Davis, The Times: This is going to be a test of faith for Ewan McGregor’s admirers. How much are they willing to endure to see him in the flesh in a painfully windy psychodrama, modelled on Ibsen’s The Master Builder, which grinds its way to a wildly implausible conclusion? Kudos to him, I say, for appearing on a London stage for the first time in nearly 20 years. McGregor doesn’t come unstuck anywhere near as badly as Sigourney Weaver did in The Tempest. Yet the truth is that he simply doesn’t have the gravitas needed for the role of a superstar architect whose personal life is about to implode.

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph: What should deepen and tauten the drama alas throws up inconclusive thoughts on empowerment and a ton of emotional overstatement. It’s hard to care about this lot, including David Ajala’s Ragnar, a pretentious and rather pre-fab flamboyant star in the field, and Elena’s nondescript assistant (Mirren Mack’s Kaia). Perky allusions to David Bowie aside, the writing clunks, and the strain on the cast shows.

Arifa Akbar, The Guardian: The play is full of plot, especially in Elena’s many machinations. There are moments of great intensity, mostly in the scenes featuring Fleetwood, and real candescence to the writing at its best. The focus on the women is interesting and intriguing, even though it means Henry feels rather spare to the drama. This is a story not of genius men building castles in the air for their princesses but of what destruction they wreak in their homes in so doing. Really, it is the drama of The Master Builder’s Wife.

Sarah Hemming, Financial Times: But timely as all this is, the situation feels oddly contrived and the dialogue often stiff and airless. McGregor suggests that Henry’s confident exterior is undermined by grief and remorse, but he struggles to animate some cloying lines. “You were like this brilliant beam of light in the dark tunnel of my life,” he says at one point. Another character talks of someone “undressing you with his eyes” — the sort of cliché that should have vanished with the first draft. And then there is Mathilde herself, who is expanded from the original and played with immense poise by Elizabeth Debicki, but still feels more like an idea than a person.

Olivia Rook, London Theatre: Debicki channels the effortless grace she brought to Princess Diana in The Crown, ethereal in costume designer Richard Kent’s steel-coloured gown. However, she only really comes alive when facing Fleetwood, who gives a charged performance as Elena, seeking sexual validation from young architect Ragnar (charismatically portrayed by David Ajala) while yearning for emotional intimacy from her husband. Elena is broken and vulnerable, revealing the impact of two miscarriages following the death of her son; she is also biting and cruel, tearing down another woman in revenge for what she has lost. Fleetwood perfectly balances these complexities, and holds the production together with her acerbic tongue and shattering revelations.

Average Rating: 48.9%