Audience Journeys Through Multiple Stories: Adapting King Oedipus for Performance

This article explores the adapting of King Oedipus for performance through processes of improvisation, collaborative devising and physical investigation. Performed across five spaces of the newly built ATRiuM building in Cardiff, and making use of multiple character casting (five Jocastas, three Creons and three Tiresiases), this production offered participants an opportunity to experiment with voice, body, spoken text, music, song and movement as a process of adaptation and production in creating work for a contemporary audience. This article considers the place of ‘text’ within the devising process, the significance of a collective approach to theatre-making and the use of space and audience–performer relationships in the performing of this specific adaptation of King Oedipus.