A Master Builder unites Academy Award-winning director Jonathan Demme with two of American theatre and cinema’s most ingenious provocateurs, André Gregory and Wallace Shawn. It is based on Gregory’s near-legendary theatrical production of Shawn’s adaptation of Ibsen’s Master Builder Solness; a production that was worked on over a 14-year period.
Halvard Solness (Wallace Shawn) is a very successful architect in his sixties. He exercises tight control over his wife Aline (Julie Hagerty), who is in permanent mourning for their only two children, who died as infants. And tight control over his employees: the old architect Knut Brovik (André Gregory), Brovik’s talented son Ragnar (Jeff Biehl), whom Solness keeps in a lowly position, and Kaya (Emily McDonnell), Ragnar’s fiancée, who is Solness’s book-keeper and sexual companion.
When Hilde (Lisa Joyce), a mysterious young woman comes to visit, the once dominating, controlling and narcissistic Solness finds himself apparently revived in every possible way. Intense, intimate and painful, A Master Builder is a witty, mystical and psychologically complex interpretation of Ibsen’s masterpiece.
A Master Builder premieres 26 September, 10pm on Sundance HD (Astro Ch438)