Orlando Ransom & Saskia Haluszkiewicz in Black Swan’s The Red Balloon. Image by Robert Frith Acorn Photo.
When adapting an existing work for the stage, theatre-makers face a perennial challenge: to honour the original text to such a degree that their production risks becoming constrained and slavish, or to play fast and loose with the source material and risk alienating, even offending those who hold the original works close to their hearts.