The Master Builder’s Tragic Quotidian

Symbolist playwright Maurice Maeterlinck’s l’Intruse (1890, The Intruder) and Henrik Ibsen’s Bygmester Solness were first staged together at Théâtre de l’Œuvre on 13 April, 1894. The day before this performance, Maeterlinck’s “A Propos de Solness le Constructeur” (Concerning The Master Builder), was published in le Figaro. In 1896, it was revised and included in le Trésor des Humbles as “le Tragique Quotidien.” Materlinck used his revision to expand on the observation that “Solness est un drame à peu près sans action” (Solness is a drama almost without action), thereby creating a kind of manifesto for modern, “static” theater (A propos de Solness). The Master Builder’s innovative and static qualities were immediately apparent to actors and directors, who struggled to find effective ways of staging Ibsen. At Théâtre de l’Œuvre, Aurélien Lugné-Poe dealt with Ibsen’s innovation by turning to Maeterlinck’s metaphysical interpretation of the play, emphasizing the tacit presence of “occult forces” and Solness’s “personal magnetism” (Deak 1993, 205). The Master Builder – with its tower, dead babies and mourned dolls, its trolls and strange helpers, and its castle in the air “med grundmur under” (with foundations underneath)” – has often been treated as a (lower case) symbolist drama (Ibsen 1892, 89). Nonetheless, Maeterlinck’s perception of a strong affinity between The Master Builder and his own understanding of the ideal modern theater strikes some critics as odd or wrong – especially if they understand Ibsen as a preeminent realist and realism as the precursor to or opponent of Symbolism. One critic particularly averse to the Symbolist interpretation of Ibsen is Joan Templeton, who claims naturalist director André Antoine as the better and more correct director for staging