The Master Builder

Henrik Ibsen (1828 – 1906) was a Norwegian dramatist and is considered the father of the modem drama. He first won worldwide attention with A DOLL'S HOUSE (1879). His next play, GHOSTS, dealt openly with the topic of venereal disease and aroused great opposition. He replied to his critics by writing AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE (1881), where he showed that an individual may be right while society is wrong. His other plays include PEER GYNT (1867), THE WILD DUCK (1884), ROSMERSHOLM (1886), THE LADY FROM THE SEA (1888), HEDDA GABLER (1890), THE MASTER BUILDER (1892), LITTLE EYOLF (1894), JOHN GABRIEL BORKMAN (1896), and WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN (1899).

Kenneth McLeish (1940 – 1997) studied Classics and Music at Worcester College, Oxford. After starting as a schoolteacher, he became a full-time translator, author, and dramatist, and in time the most widely respected and prolific translator of drama in Britain. His output included all 47 of the surviving classical Greek plays, most of Ibsen and Feydeau, as well as individual plays by Plautus, Molière, Jarry, Strindberg, Horvath, and Labiche. His original plays and translations have been widely performed, most notably by England's National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company.