Latest news with #Icarus-like
The Guardian
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
My Master Builder review – Ewan McGregor's cheating starchitect is torn down
Henrik Ibsen's Icarus-like architect is indubitably the patrician protagonist of his play The Master Builder. The women of that play revolve around him like acolytes, from his obliging wife to an infatuated bookkeeper and, controversially, the romanticised figure of Hilda, who reminds him of 'kisses' between them when he was a renowned builder and she just a child. In Lila Raicek's modern take, his wife – clever, accomplished and angry – is the fulcrum. Henry Solness (Ewan McGregor) is a 'starchitect' and Elena Solness (Kate Fleetwood) is the head of a publishing empire who has arranged a dinner, inviting Henry's long-estranged student, Mathilde (Elizabeth Debicki), with whom he had a tryst 10 years ago, when the Solness's young son had just died. Love then was mixed with grief. Now it is reignited when Mathilde reminds Solness of what they meant to each other, retrospectively. 'All that grief and all that rapture,' says Solness, as his memories come rushing back. Directed by Michael Grandage, this is Ibsen-adjacent rather than an adaptation or straight translation. Mathilde is given power and agency: she is a journalist and has written a novel inspired by her affair. There are throwaway references to Norway but the play is set in the Hamptons, with a lovely symbolist set by Richard Kent whose design has flecks of David Hockney in the flat blue sea in the backdrop and a modernist white slatted structure in the foreground which represents the chapel that Henry has rebuilt (it burnt down 10 years ago and took the life of his young son). This is very much a play about the consequence of infidelity on a marriage, and a wife's pained rage (Ibsen's Hilda was apparently inspired by real-life associations he had with younger women). Fleetwood is magnetic as Elena and she eclipses McGregor, who is boyishly earnest in his relationship with Mathilde, despite playing the older man. He seems genuinely in love and does not have the bearing of the narcissist he is supposed to be. There is not quite the chemistry between Mathilde and Henry either, although both actors are able in their parts. Mathilde's novel is called Master and there is some effort to evoke psychosexual power dynamics between them, but this does not contain enough heat. The script reckons with the problematic aspects of Ibsen's play in many ways but also complicates them. There is talk of Henry's grooming of the young Mathilde and Elena tries to create a #MeToo moment of public shaming but Mathilde is reluctant to define her experience as such. The clash between father and son, from Ibsen's play, is dealt with in passing between Henry and Ragnar (David Ajala), an influencer and rival architect, rather than with Henry's son. Instead, female camaraderie, treachery and generational difference is explored. Elena's assistant, Kaja (Mirren Mack), mocks her so-called feminism and Mathilde speaks of how Elena 'slut-shamed' her after her affair with Henry, while Elena herself mocks the younger women for all their talk about agency and power. A debate around the good/bad feminist is opened up in their judgments of each other but it sounds rather conceptual. The play is full of plot, especially in Elena's many machinations. There are moments of great intensity, mostly in the scenes featuring Fleetwood, and real candescence to the writing at its best. The focus on the women is interesting and intriguing, even though it means Henry feels rather spare to the drama. This is a story not of genius men building castles in the air for their princesses but of what destruction they wreak in their homes in so doing. Really, it is the drama of The Master Builder's Wife. At Wyndham's theatre, London, until 12 July
The Independent
07-03-2025
- Science
- The Independent
How a dying anglerfish became the darling of social media
In February, researchers from conservation organisation Condrik Tenerife were about two kilometres off the coast of Tenerife Island, looking for sharks, when they caught sight of something much stranger. Photographer David Jara Boguñá filmed a humpback anglerfish (Melanocetus johnsonii, a species of black seadevil) swimming near the surface in sunlit waters. These fish have never before been seen alive in daylight, as they normally dwell in the 'twilight zone' at depths from 200m to 600m. The video has provoked an enormously empathetic response on social media, with some seeing the fish as a feminist icon or an Icarus-like figure who swam too close to the Sun. The reaction shows our views of the deep sea – long ignored or seen as a realm of monsters – may at last be changing. The strange lives of anglerfish Anglerfish are much smaller than you probably think they are. The specimen Boguñá filmed was a female, which typically grow up to 15cm long. The creatures are named for their bioluminescent lure (or esca). This modified dorsal fin ray can produce a glow used to fish (or angle) for prey in the dim depths of the sea. The bioluminescence is produced by symbiotic bacteria that live inside the bulbous head of the esca. Male anglerfish lack the iconic lure and are much smaller, usually reaching a length of only 3cm. A male anglerfish spends the first part of his life searching for a female to whom he will then attach himself. He will eventually fuse his circulatory system with hers, depending on her entirely for nutrients, and live out his life as a parasite or 'living testicle'. It is unknown why this fish was swimming vertically near the surface. Researchers have speculated that the behaviour may have been related to changes in water temperature, or that the fish was simply at the end of her life. Watchers observed the fish for several hours, until it died. Its body was preserved and taken to the Museum of Nature and Archaeology in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where it will be further studied. Sympathy for the seadevil The video quickly went viral, inspiring countless reaction videos, artworks, memes, a Pixar-style animation and a poem titled Icarus is the Anglerfish. One Reddit user commented: 'I like to think she is a respected old grandmother who has dreamed her entire life of seeing the sunlight and the world above the water. She knows her time is nigh so she bade farewell to her friends and family and swam up towards the light and whatever it might hold for her as her life as an anglerfish comes to a close.' One person described the fish as her 'feminist Roman Empire', in the sense of an inspirational obsession that filled the same role for her that the Roman Empire supposedly does for many men. Boguñá and Condrik Tenerife have since commented on the public reaction. (The original post is in Spanish, but Instagram's automated English translation is below.) 'He's become a global icon, that's clear. But far from the romanticisation and attempt to humanise that has been given to its tragic story, I think that what this event has been for is to awaken the curiosity of the sea to PEOPLE, especially the younger ones, and perhaps, it also serves that messages about marine ecosystem conservation can reach so many more people.' From horrors to heroes The outpouring of empathy for the anglerfish is unexpected. With their glowing lures and fang-filled mouths, the creatures have long been archetypal horrors of the abyss. As I have written elsewhere, the anglerfish's extreme sexual dimorphism and parasitism, along with its unsettling anatomy, have made it the 'iconic ambassador of the deep sea'. Anglerfish or angler-inspired aliens have appeared as antagonists in films such as Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), Finding Nemo (2003), The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) and Luca (2021). The reception of 'Icarus' (as some call her) in popular culture indicates a perhaps surprising capacity for empathy toward animals that aren't conventionally cute or beautiful. It stands in stark contrast to the fate of the deep-sea blobfish Psychrolutes marcidus, which in 2013 was voted the world's ugliest animal. Perhaps the name is a clue: people have seen in the fish a creature striving to reach the light, who died as a result of her quest. But does our projection of human emotions and desires onto non-human animals risk misunderstanding scientific reality? Almost certainly – but, as US environmental humanities researcher Stacy Alaimo has argued, it may also have benefits: 'Deep-sea creatures are often pictured as aliens from another planet, and I think that gets people interested in them because we're all interested in novelty and weirdness and the surreal […] I think that can be positive, but the idea of the alien can also cut us off from any responsibility.' The deep sea and its inhabitants face growing threats from seabed mining, plastic pollution, and the effects of human-induced climate change. They need all the empathy they can get.
