Adaptation is a theatrical technique used by most writers/directors when they tackle topics unfamiliar within their societies:
It is also one of the best fora for the exploration of unusual perspectives and values, and speculation about alternative visions of society. The theatre can enact on stage behaviour that would not be tolerated elsewhere. It can force the public to face the unpalatable, and to reflect on the motivations and consequences of certain actions. It can also expose what is hidden in society, including the workings of ideology and implicit censorship, and denounce or ridicule those in power… Moreover, theatre is unpredictable: because it is live performance, it can be adapted to fit the circumstances of its staging.
Adaptation gives Zitan and Shabayek the opportunity to make the required modifications to The Vagina Monologues to suit the Arabic culture as much as possible. In this regard, they use three different strategies. The first is to practise self-censorship by completely avoiding Ensler’s thorny scenes like, "The Flood", "Because he likes to look at it", "The woman who loved to make vagina happy" and "My vagina is my village". The second technique is to adapt only the general idea of some scenes. This occurs, for example, when Shabayek uses only the idea of Ensler’s scene entitled, "My vagina is angry" – where Ensler calls for much love and intimacy during sexual intercourse – to allude to two cases of dissatisfaction: one is male impotency, when talking about a girl happy with her marriage life despite being virgin, and the other is of an unsatisfied married woman due to lack of love.
The third technique, which is most common, is to adapt the rest of scenes to suit the Arab society. For example, Shabayek replaces the part of Ensler’s monologue entitled, Hair, where Ensler prefers hair covering the vagina to shaving it: "hair is there for a reason – it’s the leaf around the flower, the lawn around the house" (Ensler 2000, 5), with halawa-making to suit the Arab culture where hair removal is the norm. Attalah remarks: "From halawa-making (a local hair removal mechanism using a sweet paste) to sexual molestation by a teacher or a preacher, Bussy re-situates the original monologues in a more localized context" (Atallah 2010). Shabayek also replaces Ensler’s scene entitled, "The Little Coachie Snorcher" where she bitterly talks about her rape experience by her father’s friend, with a child harassment by her teacher. Zitan replaces the same scene with three different stories of rape. Zitan also modifies Ensler’s last scene, "I was there in the room" in which Ensler talks about her daughter’s experience with delivery. Ensler keeps looking at her daughter’s vagina anew this time at the obstetricians’. This time vagina symbolises motherhood, sacrifice and pain: "It can ache for us and stretch for us, die for us and bleed and bleed us into this difficult, wondrous world" (Ensler 2000, 61). Repeating the same meaningful references attributed to "vagina", Zitan replaces it with a scene famous at local Arab societies where women help each other at delivery.