Acts of Redemption is a collection of six funny, bittersweet, and deeply moving monologues from The New York Times Editor Ken Jaworowski, about loss, self discovery, loneliness, hope, regret and having to constantly steal your own dog. Each piece is a story of a seminal event in the characters’ lives.

When I first was given the pieces, it was clear that each of the monologues read ‘American’ and so I knew the actors would instinctively go for an American accent. However, I was very keen from the outset to adapt each piece into having a British accent and rhythm, as I didn’t want any barriers between the emotional heart of the collection and a UK audience. This of course cannot happen without the blessing of the playwright and luckily for us, the very generous Ken Jaworowski was supportive throughout.

I very much wanted to adapt the scripts with the actors, using the adaption as a tool for building a better understanding of who their characters are. The first job was to change the obvious references ( ‘Fred’s Fisheroo’ became ‘The Frog & Bucket’, ‘Scranton’ became ‘Skegness’, ‘The Upper East Side’ became ‘Sloane Square’ and so on). It was actually quite a lot of fun transporting the characters from one place to another. They stay the same but the background is different and we were (thanks to Ken) given license to create that ourselves, almost like a photo against a green screen.

Next were the colloquiums and these required a much more sensitive approach. I was very aware that you could change words ‘willy-nilly’ and lose the heart of the character, straying from the writer’s intensions, so where possible we stayed true to the script and made certain phrases ‘character quirks’. Although we had to swap some out which are undoubtedly American (‘heck’, ‘darn’ etc).

Then there was the rhythm of the pieces. Although the language is basically the same there is a different flow - musicality if you like - in accents and dialects. In this respect we had to try to find the best-placed accent to match with each of the monologues respective rhythms. With Joe Wredden in ‘Timberwood Drive’ we felt that was an East London accent, with Rachel Parris in ‘Luck of The Draw’ we needed to travel to the Midlands, In ‘Pulse’ Amee Smith, Dan Lees & James Huntington went for RP, London & Northern respectively and Akila Cristiano had to be a privileged West London accent in ‘Never Smile, Never Wave’. Once we had these in place, the flow felt right and we could start digging deeper into the characters.

The American and British cultures are so similar but with small differences. Therefore I think that if you don’t get the adaptation right, if you don’t truly set everything where it is meant to be set, it can really jar with the audience because of those differences. In this instance, however, we had a great advantage, as the stories themselves are very ‘human’ and the writing is so honest.  As a consequence the idea of what is happening to these characters is equally relevant and relatable either side of ‘the pond’.

See Acts of Redemption at Underbelly: Cowgate until 30th August.