Wherefore art thou adapting?

Sir Ian McKellen in the "Nazis vs British soldiers" themed film production of Richard III

"...the production was really a new musical inspired by the Shakespeare comedy, in no sense an actual production of the play." writes Charles Isherwood in his 2013 New York Times article Updates Work, Except When they Don't. Isherwood is refering to a musical adaptation of Love's Labor's Lost but the point can be made in the broader context of adaptation as a whole. There seem to be three different paths that get taken; direct reproductions that re-create the original point for point with minimal alterations (if any), remixes that alter things like dress and setting. In the context of Shakespeare, this is things like the 1995 cinematic production of Richard III pictured above, or the 2010 TV film version of Macbeth starring Patrick Stewart, "remixed" to evoke 1960's Romania and the brutality of Nicolae Ceaușescu. In both cases, the original language is maintained, with minimal alterations for time. Finally there are adaptations which abandon both setting and text for updated dialogue, costuming, setting, and other aditions like musical numbers, the most famous example being West Side Story. There is a lot of leeway within those three categories, but they broadly encompass the three ways I believe we creatively interact with a source text and turn it into popular culture; recreation, adaptation, and inspiration.