Henrik Ibsen’s “The Master Builder,” written in 1892, will be presented in a new adaptation, directed by Jonathan Demme and making its theatrical premiere at Film Forum in a two-week engagement running July 23 through August 5. The film is itself the second layer of an adaptation, using as its source material Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn’s version of Ibsen’s ghostly tragedy, developed over a 14-year period in relative secrecy and translated by Shawn from the original Norwegian text.
The group’s staging, now titled “A Master Builder,” was not done in complete secrecy. Glimpses of the rehearsals were viewed in “Before and After Dinner,” a documentary about Gregory made by his wife, the filmmaker Cindy Kleine. Aside from the living room read-throughs, the film also shows a performance staged for a select group of friends. Demme was one of those invited, and after seeing this production of Ibsen’s doomed tale of oversized hubris, agreed to direct the film version.
The appearance of “A Master Builder” also makes this something of a banner year for Ibsen in New York, following the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s productions of “Builder” last summer, starring John Turturro, and “A Doll’s House” just a few months ago. But of all the recent reimaginings of Ibsen’s work, this new film is the only one to fully capture the dreamlike quality floating through the text.
Shawn and Gregory, unheralded for their contributions to the American stage, are no strangers to their work appearing on screen. The duo became famous after starring in “My Dinner With Andre,” a scripted-and-filmed conversation between Shawn and Gregory, directed by Louis Malle, that blended fact and fiction and became a succinct image of New York City tweed-jacket intellectualism. More than a decade later, the three would collaborate once again on “Vanya on 42nd Street,” a behind-the-scenes documentary of a staging of Chekhov’s play that subtly shifts in a contemporary remake. Demme’s collaboration with the duo can be viewed as the continuation of what Malle started more than three decades ago.
“A Master Builder,” which features Shawn in the title role, sticks pretty close to the original narrative, with one simple change: as the story opens, the Demme-Shawn-Gregory version sees Halvard Solness confined to a hospital bed, surrounded by friends and family. What happens throughout the play, including the appearance of Hilde (played with wild-eyed intensity by Lisa Joyce), emerges in a dreamlike state. Are these memories being revived? Or are they just the hallucinations of a man inches from death?
Demme softly inserts himself into the middle of the action, refusing to stand back and simply capture the actors from a distance. The camera, constantly moving, often frames the actors in close up, moving back and forth calmly throughout long scenes, which heightens the tension and creates a sense of intimacy not characteristic to Ibsen’s chilly work.
But it’s ultimately the performances that keep the viewer invested in the film. As much as Demme wants to make the film something different from the stage, most of what he does here is never too complex. The film unfolds with ease, keeping the focus squarely on the actors themselves. And that’s a good thing. What makes “A Master Builder” powerful — the text — will only be damaged if the focus is shifted, and Demme’s understated presentation enlightens our understanding of a classic work of drama.
