MY MASTER BUILDER

Wyndham’s Theatre

★★★

“Director Michael Grandage moves the action swiftly along, although there are no real obstacles in the script that is fast flowing and fresh”

Lila Raicek’s “My Master Builder” is not a translation of Ibsen’s ‘The Master Builder’. Nor is it an adaptation. But it is in no way a new play either even though it has its own, very contemporary feel to it. It’s a play about the dynamics of power, and Raicek successfully brings the female characters out of the shadows that Ibsen originally cast them in. Elena, the wife (an assured and seductively fiery Kate Fleetwood), is very much the co-star alongside architect Ewan McGregor’s starry status as the architect Henry. All the characters are on an equal footing in the story of a fractured marriage. A couple that, on the surface, have it all – but beneath the glossy surface grief at the loss of their son appears to be the only foundation holding them together. Played out in real time, it is July 4th, in the present day. Henry is unveiling his latest architectural triumph while his wife is getting the party in full swing. The arrival of former student Mathilde (Elizabeth Debicki) triggers memories, stirs up past desires and sets the wheels of tragedy in motion. By interval the blue touch paper is well and truly lit. The second act will provide the fireworks.

Henry – the successful and eminent architect – is the architect of his own fate, and of those around him. But this interpretation shifts the weight onto the women. Feminine power is the keynote, yet it strikes a little out of tune here, not quite finding its pitch. The vitriol that Fleetwood invests in Elena’s anger lacks justification. We would be on her side more if we could see the grief more than the righteousness. In fact, with all the characters, there is a sense of it being ‘all about me’, and it is hard to warm to these selfish personalities. The exceptions are David Ajala, as Henry’s protégé Ragnar and Mirren Mack’s Kaia. The couple share a humility that the others should definitely take note of.

Director Michael Grandage moves the action swiftly along, although there are no real obstacles in the script that is fast flowing and fresh. The central theme of the older man’s infatuation with a younger woman is not so fresh, however, and the handling is clumsy. Debicki’s Mathilde is a striking figure, but we are in constant confusion as to where her loyalties lie. We share Henry’s sentiment when he repeatedly declares her to be too beautiful to be real, but McGregor’s words are just as unreal. We just cannot believe most of what he says. Whilst the acting can’t be faulted, the mood swings and the shifts from realism to histrionics hinder the delivery.

Richard Kent’s set evokes the modernism of Henry’s visionary architecture, peeling it back to reveal the watery backdrop of the Hamptons in New York. The shoehorned references to Henry’s vertigo are vivid signposts to the tragic finale, even to those unfamiliar with the Ibsen original. Raicek’s play stands alone, though, so no familiarity is needed. Apparently semi-autobiographical, it is easy to follow, with just enough twists to satisfy. Set within the confines of a party there are nods to Thomas Vinterberg’s ‘Festen’, or Moira Buffini’s ‘Dinner’, but without much of the darkness and the suspense. Things fall apart too quickly, and the manipulations of the subplots are lost in the cascade. More could be made of Elena’s threat of making or breaking Mathilde’s debut novel, depending on whether she becomes an ally or remains a rival for her husband’s love. The punch of Raicek’s narrative is too often softened by platitudes. ‘Men do so little to be worshipped’ complains Elena, ‘while women have to do so much just to succeed’.

There is much talk of the master bedroom, and the master guest room in which past, present and potential lovers can retreat; but the play falls short of being a masterpiece. “My Master Builder” does have the power, though, to keep us gripped. What stands out more is its portrayal of the sense of loss. These are characters that have achieved much and gained more than they could want, but the losses – of love and of life – topple the lives they have built for themselves. We just wish we could care more, and sympathise with the sense of self-destruction built into them, but the piece needs a stronger foundation to truly hold it together.

MY MASTER BUILDER

Wyndham’s Theatre

Reviewed on 30th April 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Johan Persson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

NEXT TO NORMAL | ★★★★★ | June 2024

KING LEAR | ★★★★ | October 2023

OKLAHOMA! | ★★★★ | February 2023

LIFE OF PI | ★★★★★ | November 2021

MY MASTER BUILDER

★★★

“Greig’s encapsulation of the sandwich generation – elderly parent to care for and young children too – is a masterclass in empathy and subtlety”

There’s a sign on the wall on the way into the Donmar theatre warning patrons about the use of herbal cigarettes in the production. There is no sign pre-figuring the far greater traumas the audience is about to experience: the indignity of death, the intrusions of humiliating healthcare, the cruel tricks of a failing brain.

Little wonder then that daughter Bo is keen on a swift departure for Beth, her mother, who has suffered dementia of late, and debilitating strokes.

Bo frets about everything, always has done, so she’s extra keen to convey to the nurses that her actions are merciful and not, as they occasionally hint, cruel and self-serving. Indeed, this was her mother’s repeated wish – pills, pillow over the face, nil by mouth etc.

She was a firecracker in her day, indomitable and difficult, full of life – not this half-inhabited skeleton.

Writer-director Anna Mackmin mines her own experiences to inform a difficult piece that leaps back and forth through time to capture scenes from a fractious mother-daughter relationship.

There are significant problems with the play, but the casting decisions mitigate many. Tamsin Greig as everywoman Bo and Celia Imrie as the feckless bohemian Beth paper over many a structural flaw. They are superb. Funny and touching and bracing. Greig’s encapsulation of the sandwich generation – elderly parent to care for and young children too – is a masterclass in empathy and subtlety.

Bo is dowdy, unkempt and frazzled, scratching out a life in the grout between vast slabs of thankless obligation. Her mother – a peacock in her day – has spent years pointing out her daughter’s shortcomings to the point where Bo has seemly embraced the criticisms in a grim homage. And yet, occasionally Beth (never “mum”) is an inspiration too, a source of joy and laughter.

Fittingly, designer Lez Brotherston’s stage has the operatic hospital bed on a raised stage, surrounded by medical paraphernalia and appearing more like a courtly throne. A step down and we’re in Beth’s ramshackle cottage, firmly frozen in the free-loving 1960s. Here she keeps her loom and her woven artworks. A vast black backdrop fills in some gaps with scratchy projections.

Unfortunately, the play – as baggy as Bo’s “Greenham Common” cardigan – has nowhere particularly to go with this set-up and offers few revelations beyond the Ab-Fab dynamic of selfish mother and attendant child.

There’s a certain shocking delight watching Celia Imrie swear like a trooper or provide a play-by-play recitation of her sexual antics, but this is always going to offer a diminishing return.

Director Anna Mackmin has failed to press writer Anna Mackmin on some key questions. Is it worth two hours? What do we learn? Does the play need another few minutes in the oven to be truly ready?

Her script captures scenes from their life when Bo is six, 18 and off to university (needy mum is desperate not to be left behind), in her 30s, 40s and so on, as though Beth’s failing brain is compiling a highlights reel. But once we have seen one flashback, we have seen them all, and the absence of progress ramps up the need for mawkish sentimentality as filler.

The saving grace is experiencing Tasmin Greig close up in the Donmar’s intimate space. She manages to find grandeur in the gruelling mundane and it is compensation enough.

Tag Archives: Paule Constable

MY MASTER BUILDER

★★★

Wyndham’s Theatre

MY MASTER BUILDER

Wyndham’s Theatre

★★★

“Director Michael Grandage moves the action swiftly along, although there are no real obstacles in the script that is fast flowing and fresh”