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 startling 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 of Lila Raicek’s new play My Master Builder.
__Assisted performances__
Captioned Performance - Saturday 24 May 2025 at 2:30pm
Audio Described Performance - Saturday 14 June 2025 at 2:30pm
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.
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.
| 2025 | West End |
West End |
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