Beware the Cat (2018): Adapted from William Baldwin by Frances Babbage, Terry O’Connor and Rachel Stenner, introduced and edited for publication by Frances Babbage and Terry O’Connor

William Baldwin’s Beware the Cat was adapted for performance in 2018 by Frances Babbage, Terry O’Connor and Rachel Stenner, in collaboration with artist Penny McCarthy and the original cast. The full script from this performance is published here. Prefaced by a short commentary which contextualises the project and explains the strategies used to bring it to the stage, the main body of the script incorporates elements of creative documentation that seek to reflect the character of Beware the Cat as a live event. To this end, the co-authors mimic Baldwin’s use of marginalia and annotation in a commentary that runs parallel to the actors’ dialogue; additional visual and textual interventions on the page demonstrate the way in which the original performance consciously explored the power of contrasting expressive languages.