{"id":17691,"date":"2019-05-15T09:00:10","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T16:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=17691"},"modified":"2019-05-31T09:57:03","modified_gmt":"2019-05-31T16:57:03","slug":"directing-the-master-builder-a-dream-come-true-for-blue-bridges-brian-richmond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2019\/05\/15\/directing-the-master-builder-a-dream-come-true-for-blue-bridges-brian-richmond\/","title":{"rendered":"Directing The Master Builder<\/em> a dream come true for Blue Bridge\u2019s Brian Richmond"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When\nBlue Bridge Repertory Theatre was putting together their 2019 season\nwith the theme of \u201ctravel the world with us,\u201d bringing plays from\nacross the globe to Victoria\u2019s own Roxy Theatre, artistic director\nBrian Richmond knew he had to include David Hare\u2019s adaptation of\nHenrik Isben\u2019s The Master Builder<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m\njust a huge fan of Henrik Ibsen. He\u2019s one of my favourite\nplaywrights of all time\u2014a 19th-century Norwegian playwright\u2014and\nhe\u2019s also called the architect of modern drama, and I believe that\nthat\u2019s true,\u201d says Richmond. \u201cHe\u2019s really in many ways the\none who\u2019s responsible for inventing the 20th-century drama and this\nis one of his truly great plays.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\nseveral years of directing, Richmond says people always ask him if\nhe’s excited about directing a particular play and his response is\nusually that the excitement comes as he starts to engage in the\nprocess of directing it. In the case of The\nMaster Builder<\/em>, however, he\u2019s truly excited\nto be directing the piece. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a fascinating and enigmatic piece of storytelling, so I\u2019ve been wanting to direct this for well over a decade,\u201d says Richmond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Master Builder<\/em> is on at Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre until June 9 (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Despite\nthis being a long-time dream for Richmond, the quick turnaround\nbetween Blue Bridge’s previous show\u2014Happy\nDays<\/em>\u2014and The Master\nBuilder<\/em> means a quick three-week rehearsal\nprocess before opening night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s\na lot of challenges with it,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s been a play that\nright from the beginning people who were even fans of Henrik Isben\nwere perplexed by. It tends to blend realism and symbolism in one\npackage, so it\u2019s always a tricky balance from the creative team\u2019s\npoint of view of where you\u2019re going to sit in terms of your\nemphasis on realism versus symbolism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blue\nBridge has taken a more avant-garde approach to their work in the\npast; Richmond says this interpretation of The\nMaster Builder<\/em> is going to fall more along\nthose lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\nis going to be one of our far more adventurous visual approaches to a\nproduction\u2014although I haven\u2019t seen all the designs yet, but I\nthink it will be the most abstract of all of our visual designs,\u201d\nhe says. \u201cAnd the material is going to be very interesting,\nparticularly in light of the MeToo movement and how people respond to\nthis story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richmond\nexplains the central story revolves around a man in his early 60s who\nhad a fleeting encounter with a teenage woman 10 years earlier; this\nforces the audience to figure out for themselves what the main themes\nof the play are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\ndon\u2019t believe that is what the play is about, but of course that\u2019s\ngoing to be seen in a very distinct way in our times,\u201d says\nRichmond. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\nit comes to tackling these sensitive subjects, particularly in older\npieces, Richmond believes it\u2019s important to approach the past in\ntheatre the same way we do as citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe\npast is not a carbon copy of our values of the present, nor should it\nbe,\u201d he says. \u201cSo, if the past is at all valuable to be revisited\nwe have to look at the past through the lens of how people view\nissues in their time period. And so we\u2019re trying to build bridges\nbetween a set of values that, in this case, was more than 100 years\nago and our own current values… But at the same time, you need to\nbe true to the ethos and the values of the work that you\u2019re\ntackling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Master Builder<\/em>
Tuesday, May 28 to Sunday, June 9
$18- $42, Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre
bluebridgetheatre.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre was putting together their 2019 season with the theme of \u201ctravel the world with us,\u201d bringing plays from across the globe to Victoria\u2019s own Roxy Theatre, artistic director Brian Richmond knew he had to include David Hare\u2019s adaptation of Henrik Isben\u2019s The Master Builder. \u201cI\u2019m just a huge fan of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,231],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-may-15-2019-issue"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17693,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17691\/revisions\/17693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}