Whatever buzzwords there are in current social discourse are immediately picked up at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin: migration, diversity, cancel culture, gender asterisks, globalization, veganism, new rights, new lefts, new feminism.

The list is open, but always up to date.

And now this: William Shakespeare's “King Lear”, so to speak the matrix of all plays about old, white, heterosexual men, is cast here in the title role with a woman.

It's now called "Queen Lear", because, according to director Christian Weise: "A strong woman at the top triggers many associations."

No matter what that means or "open", it entails further gender changes.

The unsympathetic, but quite self-confident and power-conscious, terribly emancipated sisters Regan and Goneril, because they are "wicked and mean", naturally become sons, only the third, Cordelia, is allowed to remain a wife because, in Shakespeare, she is "honest and good ’ (and still being violated).

Count von Gloster becomes Countess Bossy Gloster to emphasize the positive character of this character, while her evil, illegitimate "bastard" Edmund is up to mischief as "Proud Boy", while her legitimate son Edgar mutates into "Sister Eddi".

In this way, the director, with his dramaturg Maria Viktoria Linke, tries to turn, clean, and remodel the drama, which he calls "misogynist" and "pretty old-fashioned".

He doesn't want to understand it, he wants to subordinate it to himself: what doesn't suit him will be made to fit.

Accordingly, it is shown in a version by the writing collective Soeren Voima adapted to today's colloquial language "after William Shakespeare".

Totally on the comedy gland

The only hope that all the unspeakable ballast theory would be resolved imaginatively on stage is not fulfilled.

Yes, she is even disappointed - both in terms of content and aesthetics: the painted stage sets by Julia Oschatz are a free interpretation of the Star Wars film sets.

Lear and everyone else roar through space in a spaceship.

Jens Dohle delivers the right science fiction music with plenty of synth hum.

Around two-thirds of the evening, which unfortunately lasts almost three hours, is broadcast from live cameras onto a huge screen, so you sit in the theater and don't get a glimpse of what's actually happening on stage.

The ensemble in Paula Wellmann's futuristically crazy costumes puts a lot of effort into it and really pushes the comedy gland.

Tim Freudensprung and Emre Aksizoğlu as Goneril and Regan clown like Rumpelstiltskin with their nasty plans, with which they want to chase Lear off the farm after they have received their inheritance, and seek to kill each other with lightsabers.

The honest, loyal Count Kent disguises himself as street prostitute Barbie Ken when he follows his misfortune queen into homelessness, which Fabian Hagen, who has stepped in at short notice due to an illness, confidently pretends with a bustier and pink hairpiece.

Intensely grotesque and increasingly tiring, it continues with Aram Tafreshian as the unscrupulous scoundrel Edmund and also with Svenja Liesau as his sister Eddi, who soon has to flee and as the insane Tom marks the hobby philosopher in the great outdoors.

The director has given her a lot of time for whims and whims, she can be in Berlin and fool around as much as she can.

The performance, however, does not become more fruitful as a result of this practical joke.

Yanina Cerón as Cordelia remains pale in the red coat, as does Oscar Olivo as a clown with green hair and long ears, like the Jedi master Yoda.

The question of all questions here was, of course, whether the great Corinna Harfouch, as the star of the production, would be able to assert the sensuous power of Shakespeare's work against Christian Weise's lowly, meaningless staging.

But how is she supposed to assert herself against this crazy party society, in which she seems completely out of place as a teetotaler?

Corinna Harfouch toils and moans, her Queen Lear does not shy away from abuse or disgrace, neither arrogance nor despair.

She struggles in the space shuttle as she does on the heath, where she squats and empties her bladder before dying next to the body of her daughter Cordelia.

But it's all useless, even a Corinna Harfouch can't win this fight.