Each stage production is unique. Yet given the fact that one and the same director was responsible for all productions examined here, it is evident that they all had much in common. By way of summary I shall in this concluding chapter highlight some of B's recurrent devices. Taken together they will indicate his directorial profile.

Despite B's early claim that he would never “stage a play against the writer's intentions,” there are many suggestions that the productions examined here frequently deviated from what can be assumed to be the intention of the writer, a sign that B's theory did not match his practice – even when the statement was made as early as the 1960s.

Take the question of deletions. Early on there were deletions in virtually all B's productions, more substantial, of course, in the longer plays than in the short plays. Of the plays dealt with here, King Lear and Peer Gynt were cut with about one third, Hamlet and The Winter's Tale with about half.

Deletions may have many causes. When the three Helmer children in A Doll's House were reduced to one, the reduction signified an updating of the play to a present-day, divorce-minded audience. When references to Buddha in The Ghost Sonata were omitted the reason was that the audience had no relation to Buddhism.

In Peer Gynt the story about the young man who cut off his finger to escape military service was deleted without any significant loss to the play and minor characters like the Memnon Statue and the Lean Man were omitted without any real harm to it. The metaphoric pig story in Long Day's Journey could be cut without any great detriment to the plot and many of the literary allusions in the play which were alien to the audience were eliminated. More dubious was the deletion of the Prologue in A Dream Play since it meant a significant restructuring of the play.

Also very short omissions can be of importance. An example is the deletion, in King Lear, of Edmund's failed attempt to withdraw his order to have Lear and Cordelia executed; it made B's Edmund more cruel than Shakespeare’s.

Changes could concern the dramatis personae. Characters were sometimes added: Klara in Miss Julie, Thalatta in The Bacchae. They could appear in new guises. In King Lear Shakespeare's Gentleman became a Scribe, his Officer a Physician. In The Bacchae Euripides’ First Messenger became a Sheperd. Changes could concern the dialogue. In Ghosts about thirty percent of the play was rewritten. In A Dolls House some additions served to support Helmer, the representative male.