William Shakespeare, Katja Brunner

Richard Three: The female monster, sketched by Katja Brunner in a very multi-faceted way, intrigues, seduces, kills and has people killed, just as you would expect from Richard. In terms of abuse of power, the title heroine is in no way inferior to her male counterpart. She even trumps him in her rhetorical skilfulness, her lust for power and her lust for murder. What is new, however, is the feminine, feminist world view of the queen Richard: she is also very imaginatively gendered in a variety of ways. Through intermezzi embedded in the plot on the themes of women, death, nature and the state, we see the musing Richard referring to our current social ills.
Katja Brunner turns a classic into a contemporary drama while having a lot of fun with a language that includes all genders and playfully tries to find answers to current questions. "Women and bodies belong to whom" is one of the big questions Richard asks herself. She makes use of quotations, creates new words and twists, combines and blends individual syllables and words to create a wonderfully poetic, fast-paced flow of language that is captivating.