The Master Builder – Arcola Theatre
Staging any Henrik Ibsen play is always an event, as he is one of the greatest masters of playwriting to have ever lived, and his work consistently tackles taboo subjects. In The Master Builder, Ibsen takes a magnifying glass to one of the most unsettling subjects he ever wrote about: the grooming of a minor and gaslighting. He couples this with his protagonist's inherent mistrust of, and fear of, the young.
Halvard Solness (Greg Hicks) is a selfish, arrogant man; a self-taught builder who never officially qualified to call himself an architect. His days of building grand churches with impressive steeples are behind him, shown quite literally here as model buildings line the bare brick back wall of Robert Innes Hopkins' elegant backdrop.
Solness fears that his young apprentice, Ragna...
