Review: MY MASTER BUILDER, Starring Ewan McGregor and Elizabeth Debicki

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.

This new version by Lila Raicek moves the setting to present day America, at a lavish 4th July party in the Hamptons. Architect Halvard becomes Henry, his wife Aline has become Elena, a publishing magnate. On the guest list is Henry’s former student and romantic obsession, Mathilde, which leads to a night to remember for all the wrong reasons.

The play is promoted as putting an intriguing contemporary twist on Ibsen’s play, but it is hard to see how My Master Builder relates to the source material in any meaningful way. Yes, it features a rich and successful architect who meets a girl from his past who he fancies a lot, but none of Ibsen’s examination of ageing, ambition and the legacy of art is here; none of the melding of guilt and desire; no searing jealousy or haunting of the past. However, the issues with this play go far beyond its failure to reference Ibsen's themes sufficiently.

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.

At first it is intriguing that Raicek gives greater emphasis to the roles of Elena and Mathilde, hinting at themes of #MeToo, female empowerment and generational differences in women’s support of each other, but none are properly explored or questioned.

Big Hollywood celebrities on stage this year have been a very mixed bag and the play marks Ewan McGregor’s first time on a London stage in 17 years. Unfortunately, he is the weakest link in the cast, conveying little emotion or conviction in much of his role, woodenly speaking his lines as though he is reciting the script, rather than inhabiting the character. An explosive argument between Henry and Elena towards the end of the play is the one scene where McGregor conveys much else except mild boredom. Even a dead son isn’t enough to elicit any dramatic motivation.

It’s also nearly a decade since Elizabeth Debicki last trod the boards and she does a little better with the wishy-washy role of Mathilde. Debicki is poised and spends a lot of the time looking wistful. More of an issue is the complete lack of sexual chemistry between her and McGregor, which looks like a stark mismatch on stage and means one of the most key plot points is implausible. Is Mathilde the victim of a predatory older man? Or is she a target for his wife? Does she have agency in her current decisions? It’s hard to care.

The excellent Kate Fleetwood manages to get more out of the script as embittered wife Elena, chewing up every scene with a visceral performance; full of vanity and bravado masking deep pain and loss. Her Elena is full of contradiction and teeters on the edge of propriety and control throughout.

Completing the cast, David Ajala camps it up in a slightly weird manner as Henry’s protégé Ragnar and Mirren Mack does what she can as Elena’s assistant Kaia. Grandage's fluid direction cannot save them from the wooden and awkward dialogue.

Richard Kent’s stylish set design at least gives us something nice to look at. Taking us from a glimpse of Henry’s construction of an intricate glass chapel to the Hampton’s dining room overlooking the sea, all tastefully lit by Paule Constable.

The production draws to an end with a statement of "what endures of us is love", copied almost directly from the final line of Philip Larkin's poem "An Arundel Tomb". It befits this production that McGregor even makes that masterful line sound glib. 

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

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