FringeReview UK 2026

The Master Builder

Arcola Theatre

Genre: Adaptation, classical, Costume, Drama, European Theatre, Mainstream Theatre, Theatre, Tragedy, Translation

Venue: Arcola Theatre, Studio 1, Dalston

Festival: FringeReview UK

Low Down

Review

Trolls are banned. The Arcola’s Artistic Director Mehmet Ergen knows the Ibsen he wants and the way it should go. The lean, rational David Edgar version of Ibsen’s The Master Builder from 2010 has stayed fresh – something Edgar addressed, discussing Ibsen’s 1892 work; itself cusping his last, haunted phase. As if Edgar wishes to pull Ibsen back to his rational self: The Ibsen of A Doll’s House, Ghosts (largely), Enemy of the People and the recent Hedda Gabler. Director Ergen, in choosing Greg Hicks’ lean, almost sociopathic master-builder – suppressing or toppling competitors – also seems ready to school Wall Street in ruthlessness. Ergen helms The Master Builder in Arcola’s Studio 1 till November 21. But this work packs surprises, disruptions to a world. That’s where this production – lasting to hours 20 with interval – leaps into a different life.

Hicks’ prowling Halvard Solness seems coiled with feral energy, hungry yet fearful. A self-made master-builder who outstrips any formally-qualified architect, that chink yet irks him: is perhaps the heart of his fears. That and the way he’s somehow created the conditions to “topple” others “from their perch” a tired metaphor Solness yet keeps fresh. He anticipates blowback, vengeance, or as family Doctor Herdal (Peter Guinness, exuding a watchful emissary between worlds) first points out: “youth knocking at the door”, a prime motif. Though his Solness is haunted, Hicks refuses a brooding dark: his Master Builder shows his teeth.

What Solness fears lurks – as he sees it – in his own practice. He’s kept on ruined architect, ailing Knuyt Brovik (Robin Hooper, luminously aggrieved and vulnerable), as a painfully honest, gravely ill man wanting one last concession. That’s for his talented son Ragnar Brovik (Ryan Wichert, visibly emasculated in several ways by Solness). It’s Ragnar’s drawings for a house a couple would love to see built, that Solness refuses to sign off. Instead he keeps both father and son as draughtsmen over details like load-bearing.

Solness is also carrying on a convenient affair with pinched, anxious bookkeeper Kaja Fosli (Jade Williams), engaged half-heartedly to Ragnar, but wholly in love with Solness with whom she’s having an affair. Which is unfortunate, since Solness merely toys with her: Hicks repeatedly kisses Williams on the forehead (a neat touch here, proving a dramatic irony when another woman shows up).

Williams, with a gift for exuding hollowed, frustrated characters (in Gorky’s The Lower Depths in this Studio, or The Seagull’s Masha at Chichester and NT) here flinches with shy desire and panic whenever she fears Solness’ wife Aline (Sally George) might have guessed. Kaja’s barren passion – and conflicted loyalties –  are shiveringly conveyed by Williams.

George’s Aline Solness is more robust than some: she even shows amused asperity dealing with the two younger women here. Dare one say it, with George clad elegantly in black, there’s a tiny bit of Sybil Fawlty when with more than one person. But in her intimate exchanges with Hicks’ Solness and Hilde Wangle (Louisa Binder), the full tragedy unfolds. How a fire destroyed not only her family home and intimate possessions, but poisoned her breast-milk and killed her newborn twin sons. The fire, which Solness feels some guilt over (indirectly, tortuously) was also the making of him; just as it entombed their marriage.

Binder’s Hilde Wangle making her stage debut blazes into the play. She’s known to the Doctor: not some apparition, if acting like one. She even uses words in Edgar’s translation like “spooky” “magic” and “brilliant”. Her register is contemporary, flinging down her backpack. Her assertion she met Solness 10 years ago at 13, that he “showered her with kisses” promising her a castle within 10 years, sounds creepy now (to say the least). Hilde saw Solness place a wreath over his last-commissioned church spire, despite fear of heights.

Those 10 years are up, and everything from Peer Gynt‘s Button Moulder to every other time-limited figure like the sailor in The Woman From the Sea clamour for nemesis. Will this finally be renewal or destruction? There’s another phallic spire: Solness’ own new home, the one Aline cares nothing for. His assertion that he “builds homes for ordinary people” seems truer of Ragnar’s plans.

Solness struggles to remember the encounter. This liminal memory is where Binder’s luminous, seemingly straightforward Hilde scores. Her very brightness casts shadows: she draws out both Solness’ and Aline’s confidences and we hear each backstory through it. In some ways this seems to draw Hilde more towards Aline. Binder though ensures Hilde’s loyalties and motives remain ambivalent.

Binder, in a mesmerising performance that lights up the stage round Hicks’ steel-grey apparel and demeanour, challenges Solness. First to forego his fears: Hilde champions Ragnar for instance. And keep fairy-tale promises. Is her motive, hoping to see Solness ascend a ladder once again “so brilliantly alive”, a sexually-charged fantasy or a glimpse of vengeance? Binder’s wide-eyed fierceness allows all these. The very transparency of her performance, its glow, throws an opacity.

It also restores a mystery to this production Ergen and Edgar might have wanted to keep at bay. Yet they allow Binder’s role enough amplitude to suggest it. Robert Innes Hopkins’ set works with Carl Larsson-like clarity. Skeletal architectural models – including the Solness’ new home complete with tower – march up the backwall in white. There’s stencil-sharp white branches: though it’s September 19-20, they seems cut out for winter. Costumes are understated: contemporary grey through black, with Hilde’s emerald top flashing across like an exotic bird. Lit cleanly by Richard Williamson, with Deniz Dortok’s sound and composition adding a few ominous notes, it’s an antiseptic backdrop till suddenly near the end a video projection shows what “creatures of the night” – Edgar’s translation – lurk there.

It’s as if Edgar’s swapped an Alistair McDowall-like world or other Cthonic creatures to replace trolls. Yet this feature’s kept at bay till the very end. Not enough of this haunts the rest though; the set’s restraint works against the apotheosis this play can bring. Hicks, George, Williams, above all Binder are powerful, and deserve more explosive release. It’s still a superb, one might say psychically clean production: the best a rational world can offer. Ibsen though was haunted: a touch more of that – it does hover here – would render this outstanding.

Understudy: Josh Picton

Assistant Director Aoife Beaumont, Production Manager Amy Mitchell, Costume Supervisor Bessy Mo, Stage Manager on Book Rosie Fleming, ASM Ryan Denton, Illustrator and Visual Artist Maya Bora Yesil, Design Placement Yagmur Karabacak, Directing Placement Julia Berman

Mix Engineer Joel Allison, Production lX Venus Raven, LX Programmer Beril Yavuz, Production Carpenters David Gregory, Adam Bottomley Creative, Scenic Instalation Jodie freeman Earth and Ivy Ltd, Production Crew Lee Elston, Frank Maguire, Set Electrics Michael D Whyte, Casting Director Rob Kelly. Photo Credit: Alex Brenner. Press Sadie Pearson.

Thanks to Stu Holden at Wicked London and Rhodri Evans at the Young Vic, FOH, Technicians and Cleaning Team.

Published October 23, 2026 by Simon Jenner