Abstract

This chapter draws on conceptions of devising and collective creation to promote a renewed understanding of different processes of adaptation, the diverse modes of collaboration involved, and the various intersectional points at which conventionally designated and usually hierarchical roles associated with such forms as theatre overlap and bleed into each other. It suggests that the fruitful blend of adaptation and devising, which has been ongoing for some time in theatre practice, also could inform the ways in which we theorise adaptation as collaborative art more broadly. The chapter explores these ideas using as case studies different productions of the stage adaptation of Pat McCabe’s The Butcher Boy (1992) which has been overshadowed in adaptation studies by the 1997 film version.