Master of psychology

The Master Builder, if done properly, can be one of those theatrical experiences that make you wonder if the Greeks were a teeny bit overrated. Matthew Warchus’s version is four-fifths there. Ralph Fiennes is well equipped to play Halvard Solness, the cold, brilliant autocrat with a troubled past who falls into the arms of a gorgeous young suitor. But he’s the wrong age for the part. So is his opposite number, Sarah Snook, who seems too mature to suggest Hilde’s skittish frivolity. Fiennes, like all film stars, attends carefully to his looks and although he’s over 50 he could easily play ‘late thirties’. But the aged Halvard needs to be like a grizzled alderman ogling a virgin in the choirstall. The affair should seem repellent and sinful. As it is, the dark-haired Fiennes and the luscious Snook suggest the glamorous coupling of a hotshot yuppie and a gap-year sex kitten.

Ibsen crams huge themes into the modest setting of a provincial architecture practice. He meditates on grief, fame, sexual temptation, and the tricky common ground between genius and lunacy. The play is loaded with heavy symbolism, which miraculously works in its favour. Here’s an example. The Solnesses have lost their twin sons in a house fire. So Halvard installs their replacement home with three nurseries, all of which have remained empty. Next he plans another house with, yes, three further nurseries, even though his wife is well beyond child-rearing age. By trowelling on the torment like this Ibsen creates moments of startling hilarity. Being a master of psychology he offers plot twists that are both daft and logical. Enjoy the laughter. It’s part of the play’s greatness and its weirdness.