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| Katherine Borowitz, John Turturro, and Wrenn Schmidt. Photo by Graeme Mitchell. |
Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder runs at BAM through Sunday, June 9. Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of articles, videos, and original blog pieces related to the show. For those who've already seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.
On the Blog
Illustration
“John Turturro: The Mid-Eighties Hat Trick”
Nate Gelgud provides an illustrated look at the pre-Spike Lee, pre-Cohen Brothers John Turturro.
Around the Web
Article
“John Turturro Balances Blockbusters with Ibsen” (The Wall Street Journal)
How did Turturro come to work with Woody Allen? His hairstylist played matchmaker.
Video
BAM Artist Talk: The Master Builder with John Turturro and Andrei Belgrader (YouTube)
Turturro and Belgrader discuss their time at Yale, the task of distilling Ibsen, and much more.
Article
“That Period Look, Ringlets and All" (The New York Times)
The Master Builder’s Wrenn Schmidt talks about playing Hilde Wangel, the perfect tattoo, and more.
Article
“Ibsen’s The Master Builder” (The Guardian)
The master builder as Ibsen in disguise? Hilde as a Nietzschean übermensch? A critic looks for subtext.
Article
“10 Actresses to Watch in 2013 (IndieWire)
Boardwalk Empire’s Wrenn Schmidt, who plays Hilde in The Master Builder, made the cut.
Profile
“The Pack Rat Who Supplies the Scenic Illusion” (The New York Times)
A profile of the “inveterate hunter-gather” Santo Loquasto, set designer of The Master Builder.
Video
A Town Hall with John Turturro (YouTube)
Turturro reflects on telling Michael Bay to blow his nose, being terrified of Endgame, pitching a sequel for “The Jesus,” and much more.
Review
An 1893 Review of the The Master Builder at London’s Trafalgar Square Theater (Ibsen.net)
“The blunder has been made. "Master-Builder Solness" has been played upon the London stage,” blustered the Pall Mall Gazette in 1893.
Full Text
The Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen (Gutenberg.net)
Download a free version of the play to read on your Kindle or online.
Writings
Leon Trotsky on Ibsen’s Women (Marxists.org)
Can the seeds of revolution be found in The Master Builder’s Kaja Fosli or Hedda Gabler? Trotsky opines.
Worthwhile Words
Belgian symbolist poet Maurice Maeterlinck, writing in a New York Times article from 1900 about The Master Builder:
[Hilde and Solness's] talk resembles nothing which we have heard until now, because [Ibsen] has tried to mingle in the same expression the interior and the exterior dialogue. There reign in the somnambulic drama I know not what new powers. Everything that is said in it hides and discovers at the same time the sources of an unknown life. And if we are astonished, we must not lose sight of the fact that our mind is often, in our poor eyes, a very foolish power, and that there are in men many regions more fecund, more profound, and more interesting than those of reason or of intelligence.
Now Your Turn . . .
So what's your verdict? Once you've seen the show, tell us what you thought about the play, the sets, John Turturro's climbing skills, or anything else that might be on your mind in the comments below.