A Master Builder

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. Shawn's adaptation hues very closely to the original Ibsen with one astonishing 'Shawnian' departure - - while perfectly healthy in Ibsen's original version, Shawn introduces Solness on his deathbed with only hours to live. 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.