David Sarkies's Reviews > The Master Builder

Castles in the Sky
10 February 2020

I’m glad I spent a bit more time looking into this play instead of just rushing out a review as I normally do because Ibsen certainly does deserve to be explored somewhat deeper than most other books and plays (well, not quite, because plays, especially these days, seem to fall into the realm of art and literature). I do actually appreciate that Ibsen’s plays don’t tend to end all that pleasantly since it does set them apart from most of the stuff that seems to be floating around these days – like, everything has to have a happy ending for some reason, but I guess that is what the audience expects – oh, and gratuitous sex scenes, if what my author friends indicate.

Anyway, as you can probably guess from the title this play is about a master builder. Well, I probably should say architect because tradies don’t seem to regularly, if ever, form the basis of a theatrical production, and when they do, they tend to be portrayed as rather crude, and comical. Well, being a middle-class professional myself, I guess it is difficult to relate to tradies in that way, though I suspect that there aren’t all that many tradies out there that would go and visit the theatre (though I hope I’m wrong on that account).

Another thing that I’ve noticed about these couple of plays in particular is that the main character seems to have a haunted past. Well, not so much in this piece since our master builder seems to have in part lived a charmed life. Not quite, because his wife’s ancestral house burnt down killing their children. Yet, he also seemed to have luck go his way as well, having pushed all competition out of his town so that not only is he a master builder, but he is the only builder.

The thing is that this woman suddenly rocks up and claims that ten years previously he had visited their town, built a grandiose church, and promised this girl that in ten years he would give her a kingdom. Well, this particular girl has decided that she will hold him to his word and claim that kingdom, though this does sort of seem to be something that he said on the fly to a little girl. Yeah, I guess the moral here is that one needs to be careful what they say to people, least they be held to it.

But our master builder is an interesting character because while it seemed as if the fire was an accident, he sort of indicates that he saw some flaws in the building, but didn’t act on them. Though it turned out that the fire didn’t come about because of the flaws, but elsewhere. However, what he did do was subdivide the land and sell off a number of dwellings for a substantial profit – so it seemed as if everything worked out well for himself.

Yet it also seems as if he has moved away from building grandiose structures to simply building houses. I guess the money is a lot better, as well as the demand. The other interesting thing is that he has some employees, and one of them really wants to take over the business, but of course our Master Builder has a reputation to uphold, and he is simply not going to just let anybody take over the business. In fact, he ends up looking for an excuse to get rid of them.

Personally, I don’t find him to be all that sympathetic, nor do I find him all that repulsive either. In a way he seems to be this character that has been caught up in his own delusion that he can will what he wants to happen. In a way, he dwells in a castle in the sky (a term that is thrown about throughout the play). Because things have gone right for him, and have also positioned himself in such a good position, he has been caught up in that delusion – God loves him and has rewarded him for his service. Woah, that certainly can open up a whole can of worms, which is a rabbit hole that I certainly won’t be diving down at this time (as I believe I have dived down there a number of times in the past, and no doubt will do so again in the future).

So, this seems to be a play focused on a person nearing the end of his life, caught up in a delusional world where everything seems to go right for him. I guess one could claim that this is also partly autobiographical, but one also wonders whether it is possible to change the opinions or outlook of a person that has reached that point in their life. Usually, by this time we are pretty much set in our ways, and also somewhat caught up in our delusions. Still, this is a pretty good play, and maybe it is not so much an exhortation to the elderly, but to those of us who don’t want to think about this stage of life just yet.