By Sarah Mills
LONDON (Reuters) -The new Ibsen-inspired play “My Master Builder” digs into modern-day relationship politics, actor Ewan McGregor said at the show’s official opening night on Tuesday.
Back on stage in the West End for the first time in 17 years, Emmy award winner McGregor, known for on-screen roles such as Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi in “Star Wars”, said he loves doing theatre.
“The audience teach you what works, what doesn’t work,” he said, adding that the bond actors have on stage “you can’t really find in the film world”.
Set in the present day in The Hamptons in New York State, “My Master Builder” explores what happens when powerful publisher Elena Solness (Kate Fleetwood) throws her architect husband Henry Solness (McGregor) a dinner party – attended by a former student and love interest of his, played by Elizabeth Debicki.
“It really is an interesting look at sexual politics, relationship politics of today versus the way that ‘The Master Builder’ was written … in the late 1800s,” McGregor said.
Inspired by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s 1892 play “The Master Builder”, “My Master Builder” came from writer Lila Raicek’s own experience of being treated like a pawn in a powerful couple’s marriage.
“I realised that this framework of this twisted love triangle was actually very much inspired by Ibsen. So Ibsen’s kind of a scaffolding,” she said.
Unlike in Ibsen’s play, her female characters are at the forefront, along with the men,” Raicek said. “Every character holds equal weight … our allegiances … are with everyone in the play,” she said.
“It’s about how people re-narrate their memories … we really excavate what the two women in that story have to say to one another and how they reframe narratives to suit themselves or to manipulate one another,” actor Kate Fleetwood explained.
While McGregor played on Broadway in 2014’s “The Real Thing” with Maggie Gyllenhaal, his last performance in London was in 2008 in director Michael Grandage’s “Othello”.
(Reporting by Sarah MillsEditing by Ros Russell)
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