My Master Builder - Review

Wyndham's Theatre, London

***

Written by Laila Raicek

Directed by Michael Grandage

Elizabeth Debicki and Ewan McGregor

My Master Builder marks Lila Raicek’s impressive arrival on the West End. Ewan McGregor is Henry Solness the titular, eminent, architect, but just whose master builder he is, remains an enigma. It is clear from early on that his marriage to Elena (Kate Fleetwood) is in dire straits, while the arrival of Mathilde (Elizabeth Debicki) to the party that is marking the completion of Henry’s latest project, only adds a complex layer of shading to the narrative. 20 years his junior, Mathilde shared a romantic liaison with the architect a decade ago. The passions and grief that surround Raicek’s narrative are at times smouldering and at other times blistering. 

Debicki and Fleetwood are phenomenal - Fleetwood in particular with her lament in the second act as to the challenges facing women in life. McGregor convinces as a deeply flawed protagonist, but there are moments in his performance when his acting loses the required depth. This may no doubt be addressed as the play’s run settles in.

Similarly, and particularly in the first half, Raicek’s dialogue drifts into expositional cliche. For the most part however her writing thrills as it explores the agonies both of failed relationships and of bereavement. There is sound work too from David Ajala and Mirren Mack that serves to drive the story forward.

A play about an architect demands an appropriately ingenious staging, with designer Richard Kent duly delivering. That being said, Kent has created some massive set components that require hoisting up and down through the evening, with the Wyndham’s noisy winches proving an annoying distraction.

My Master Builder is clever and at times, deeply perceptive.

Runs until 12th July

Photo credit: Johan Persson

The Grapes of Wrath - Review

National Theatre, London

***

Written by John Steinbeck

Adapted by Frank Galati

Directed by Carrie Cracknell

Cherry Jones

Frank Galaţi’s 1990 adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic makes for an interesting glimpse of American history. The 1930s Dust Bowl, coming hard on the heels of the Great Depression and Wall Street Crash saw the fabled american dream evolve into a nightmare for millions, with countless Mid-Westerners migrating towards California, in desperate search of a living.

Simply staged, Carrie Cracknell’s production that comes in at just under three hours mixes quality with tedium. Greg Hicks and Cherry Jones as Pa and Ma Joad are a magnificent focal pair of Oklahomans leading their family west. Hicks only recently played an onstage farmer in the musical Oklahoma!, so there is a theatrical symmetry in seeing his decline from playing a prosperous landowner to an impoverished migrant.  Both he and Jones bring a perfectly weighted gravitas to their family’s struggles and amidst a luxuriously cast company of 27, there is standout work from Harry Treadaway as their son Tom and Mirren Mack as daughter Rose of Sharon.

Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel is brutal in its portrayal of the depths of the era’s hardships, not least in its harrowing finale that Cracknell and Galati effectively retain. The show however slips into cliché too often, with Maimuna Memon’s songs that have been written for this production. The #RefugeesWelcome theme to Memon’s lyrics offers a clumsily crass attempt to link a contemporary political relevance with Steinbeck’s magnum-opus and proves to be a disappointing distraction.

Good in parts.

Runs until 14th September

Photo credit: Richard Hubert Smith