The Master Builder - Henrik Ibsen - Leo Mckern - 1988

Here's the wonderful play The Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen starring Leo Mckern in the leading role recorded by me in 1988 BBC Television.

The Master Builder (Norwegian: Bygmester Solness) is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was first published in December 1892 and is regarded as one of Ibsen's most significant and revealing works.

Halvard Solness is the middle-aged Master Builder of a small town in Norway who has become a successful architect of some distinction and local reputation. One day while having a visit from his friend Doctor Herdal, Solness is visited by Hilde Wangel, a young woman of twenty-four from another town whom the doctor promptly recognizes from a recent trip. Soon after the Doctor leaves and Solness is alone with Hilde, she reminds him that they are not strangers and that they had previously met in her home town ten years ago when she was fourteen years of age. When Solness does not respond to her quickly enough she reminds him that at one point he had made advances upon her, offered a romantic interlude, and promised her "castles in the sky" during their encounter, which she believed. He denies this and she gradually convinces him, however, that she can assist him with his household duties and he takes her into his home.

Solness is also the manager of an architectural office in which he employs Knut Brovik, his son Ragnar Brovik, and Kaia Fosli. Kaia and Ragnar are romantically linked and Ragnar has amibitions to become promoted in his architectural vocation which Solness is remiss to grant or support. Solness also has a complicated relationship with his wife Aline and the two are discovered to have lost children as a result of a dangerous fire from years past. During this time period, Solness unexpectedly builds a closer tie with Hilda while she is in his home as she supports his architectural vocation and new architectural projects.

During the construction of his most recent project which included towering steeples, Hilde learns that Solness suffers from acrophobia, a morbid fear of extreme heights, but nonetheless encourages him to climb the steeples to their very height at the public opening of the newly completed building. Solness, inspired by her words, begins his ascent to the top of the steeples when he suddenly loses his footing and crashes to his death on the ground before the spectators collected for the opening of the new building. Among the spectators standing aghast at the sight, only Hilde comes forward with a gleeful expression on her face stating the words, "My Master Builder."