During robot-assisted surgery (RAS), space around the situs is limited, which is further aggravated by bulky telemanipulation systems. Using a passive universal joint between the manipulator’s TCP and the surgical instrument and accepting the occurrence of lateral forces, might lead to a more compact manipulator design. Aiming for widespread usage, further simplifications of RAS systems must be investigated. Thus, there is a need for a reconfigurable and easy to adapt master-slave telemanipulation setup. In this paper, the kinematic approach using a universal joint and the setup of manipulator, instrument adapter, and input device are described. Preliminary tests confirm the proposed kinematic setup and show robust operation. However, the magnitude of the forces on the abdominal wall needs to be investigated.