There are a number of small theatre companies and directors these days in various artsy pockets of this great world that use source material from other forms in order to put together an evening of live theatre. Sometimes this source material is a novel. Sometimes it's transcriptions of interviews. Or an essay.
To my thinking, it doesn't really matter where these texts originated, the problem is not in the impulse to adapt but in the failure to actually do so in a way that makes for an engaging evening of theatre.
Let's take a look at the dictionary definition of the word.
a-dapt: n. To adjust to a specified use or situation.
If I want to enjoy the insights found in a great work of literature, precisely as they were put on the page decades ago, I'd rather be sititng on my sofa with a nice glass of wine, soaking it all in at my own pace. When actors simply stand on stage and recite verbatim every line of the text -- top to bottom -- where does my mind go? To the last time I sat on my sofa reading that book.
There are some exceptions that by their excellence show these lazy adapters to be the frauds that they are. For example: Charlie Victor Romeo, currently playing at 3LD, is a fine example of verbatim text transcribed (in this case from cockpit voice recorders of airline disasters) and turned into harrowing and stunning theatre. Another example that springs to mind were the early works of Tectonic, such as The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde. Here again, court records were used as source material but an evening of theatre was shaped by a playwright, Moises Kaufman.
It's kind of astonishing that in a time when playwrights seem to grow on trees, small ensembles and directors don't feel they need them. I'm reminded of a time ten years ago when I was hired to direct a small sketch comedy show featuring three performers who usually just stood on stage and read or talked, always to great effect. It took them a very long time to come around to the idea (suggested by their producer) that they even needed a director. They figured they knew what they did well and that was enough.
As theatre artists I think we need to resist the impulse to go it alone, to think we can put a show together while skipping over a key collaborator. To do so without a playwright in the room, to my mind, feels both selfish and stupid.