The Master Builder review – false swagger and queasy infidelity propel Ibsen’s big-drop drama

Arcola theatre, London
David Edgar’s translation grounds Ibsen’s otherworldly play about a middle-aged architect’s fall from power, but its flaws are too loud to ignore

This outing of Henrik Ibsen’s play, translated by playwright David Edgar, is reassuring after Lila Raicek’s oddly conceived West End version last year starring Ewan McGregor – as well intentioned as its feminist revisionism might have been.

Edgar’s is more faithful to the original in form and spirit (although he compresses three acts into two), and its strengths lie in drawing out the psychological aspects of the ageing, anxious master builder at its centre, whose fall from the heights of worldly acclaim is both real and symbolic in a play that blends both those realms together.