Devised-theater companies like Improbable fumble their way to a completed piece through trial and error. They come up with a theory for what might work, then test that theory until they realize that it doesn’t. Preordained destinations rarely pan out.

Or, as the Improbable co-artistic director Lee Simpson put it, “You head off and then you turn around and see where you’ve gone.”

Not so different from scientists, really, which made Lauren Slater’s controversial 2004 book, “Opening Skinner’s Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the 20th Century,” such an enticing — if counterintuitive — title for adaptation.

Improbable’s past offerings have riffed off works ranging from Shakespeare (“The Tempest”) to campy Vincent Price horror films (“Theater of Blood”), typically taking considerable liberties and adding bold visuals along the way. But “Opening Skinner’s Box,” which begins on Monday at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater as part of the Lincoln Center Festival, plays it surprisingly straight. “This piece is sort of ridiculously faithful to the book, which is not like us,” Mr. Simpson said.