4 / 10
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.
6 / 10
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.
Elizabeth Debicki, Kate Fleetwood, David Ajala, Mirren Mack, and Ewan McGregor are leading My Master Builder at Wyndham's Theatre. Check out photos here!
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.
Michael Grandage's My Master Builder is billed as a reinvention of Ibsen's play of almost the same name through a modern, female lens. A rich story with themes of control, power, and the search for validation, featuring a host of stars of stage and screen. What could go wrong? Quite a lot as it happens.
Elizabeth Debicki, Kate Fleetwood, David Ajala, Mirren Mack, and Ewan McGregor will star in My Master Builder - a new play by American playwright and screenwriter Lila Raicek. Get a first look at rehearsal photos here!
Elizabeth Debicki, Kate Fleetwood, David Ajala, and Mirren Mack join Ewan McGregor to complete the cast of My Master Builder - a new play by American playwright and screenwriter Lila Raicek.
