ABSTRACT
Scottish poet and playwright Liz Lochhead (b.1947) is known for her vivid feminist reimaginings of cultural myths, historic figures, and literary figures. Introductions to her plays published by Nick Hern Books offer an intimate account of Lochhead's process and situate her work in its contemporary Scottish context. This essay introduces an excerpt from Lochhead's introduction to Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off (1987), detailing the ways in which Lochhead's account of her process offers an important feminist intervention into dominant assumptions about dramatic adaptation and playwriting. The essay highlights how Lochhead's process and work are contextually composite, rather than singular and linear, suggesting that we read her introductions as feminist dramatic criticism that draws attention to the irregularity of labor, the influence of circumstance, context and collaboration on dramatic structure, and the importance of association to both content and form.
