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Update: a full cast has now been announced for My Master Builder, with Elizabeth Debicki starring as Mathilde, Kate Fleetwood as Elena Solness, David Ajala as Ragnar, and Mirren Mack as Kaja.
It’s been 17 years since Ewan McGregor starred on the British stage – his turn as the villainous Iago in Michael Grandage’s Donmar Warehouse production of Othello came two years after he’d popped his musical theatre cherry in Grandage’s Guys & Dolls.
Then the Scottish actor seemed to be learning, trying out new things after the blockbuster success (but mixed reviews) of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Now he is the master – or rather, he is The Master Builder, as he reunites with Grandage for a new version of Ibsen’s play about Henry Solness, a formidable architect whose world is infiltrated by Mathilde, a young woman who says he made a pass at her when she was a young teenager. He denies it, but takes her into his service; her motives are profoundly oblique.
This will not exactly be Ibsen’s play, which like much of his work – notably Hedda Gabler and A Doll’s House – is kind of a harbinger of feminist literature, but doesn’t fit the mould perfectly. Rather it’s called My Master Builder and it’s by budding US playwright Lila Raicek, who isn’t especially well known but is starting to make serious waves in the US.
Quoth McGregor: ‘It’s such a thrill be returning to the stage – and to work with Michael again, an actor’s director with whom I have had some of my happiest working experiences. He’s a generous collaborator, who enables you to discover the play together afresh in the rehearsal room. And what a play – I love where Lila has taken the story, a very modern take on today’s sexual politics.’
The show is on sale now, with 10,000 £25 tickets promised across the whole run.
My Master Builder is at Wyndham’s Theatre, Apr 17-Jul 12 2025. Buy tickets here.
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