PROMOTIONAL PHOTO

Susan Heyward as Hilda in The Master Builder.

The Master Builder
By Henrik Ibsen. Translated by Paul Walsh. Directed by Evan Yionoulis. Produced by the Yale Repertory Theatre.  Yale University Theater, 222 York St., New Haven: 203-432-1234, yalerep.org. Ends Oct. 10.

In staging this undeservedly lesser-known work by one of the most popular playwrights ever, one of the Yale Rep’s intentions was to remove Ibsen from the stuffy Victorian trappings that his vibrant, modernist, psychologically profound dramas have struggled against for over a century. Who knew all it took would be the girl who plays the bit part of Lindsey on Comedy Central’s “Michael & Michael Have Issues”?

Susan Heyward’s head-turning, coquettish performance detracts beautifully from the morose, self-absorbed, morally complex man who resides at the center of all Ibsen’s plays. Her skirt-swirling youthfulness, as an impetuous girl who pays a surprise visit to the Master Builder (David Chandler) with whom she spent an odd afternoon 10 years earlier, adds levity and, most importantly, sex appeal to this otherwise prone and proselytizing play.

In Evan Yionoulis’ modern-minded production, you learn that only one frigid character is really necessary in Ibsen’s Norwegian wasteland. In this case, it’s Felicity Jones, who’s shown her frivolous, fun-loving and romantic sides regularly at the Rep. She conceals those traits admirably here as the Master Builder’s sober, somber wife, who has guilty secrets of her own. Yet we recognize the vibrant woman she can be, and the performance never says “What does he see in her anyway?” It says “What happened to make her this way?”

In the pivotal title role, buffeted by these exquisite women, is David Chandler. Chandler has traipsed stages in New Haven many times, in charming harmless drivel like Syncopation and elaborate contemporary works like the U.S. premiere of David Edgar’s Pentacost. He can fall comfortably into conventional characterizations if required — he does anguished heroes particularly well — but I like him best when he and his directors challenge themselves to upend such comfort and cliché to figure out whole new ways to enliven old works. Chandler brings that same bravery to the role of self-abusive architect Halvard Solness in Ibsen’s housebound 1892 psycho-potboiler.

Not all the casting is so astute. Robert Hogan, demonstrating the stilted old-world out-of-it prattling style that the other actors are trying so hard to avoid. I’ve gotten used to Yionoulis’ chemistry experiments — which often set stodgy stage veterans against bright young things — and have come to applaud the risks she takes. She’s just as brazen in her choice of plays: Over the years, she’s unearthed Brecht’s Galileo, Shakespeare’s Richard II and now the play that Ibsen wrote just after Hedda Gabler.

The 2006 translation by Paul Walsh has been carefully revised in accordance with Yionoulis’ full-bodied, short-attention-span vision. It’s full of rich language that underscores the character’s lightly-hidden passions. While the Signet Classics translation of Master Builder settles for soap-operatic babble — “It was inside of me, something goading and driving me here. Coaxing and luring me here” — Paul Walsh uses every double-entendre at his disposal to heighten the essential, subdued sexual interplay: “It was this thing inside me that pricked and spurred me. Seduced and enticed me.” Walsh also has Hilda refer to Solness solely by his overtly masculine moniker “Master Builder” whenever possible — over 40 times, in fact — while everyone else, even his staff, addresses him more informally.

All these subdued emotions and subliminal outbursts build, so to speak, to a thunderous climax that makes you appreciate Timothy Brown’s sleek set, which turns the stage floor into the façade of a tall house with bay windows. But David Chandler doesn’t need Brown’s set for his conflicted character to climb the walls. He’s got Felicity Jones and Susan Heyward to clamber around.