Marius von Mayenburg (GER)
Authors / Film / Theater / Directors / Theater
is a playwright, director and translator. Born in Munich, he studied playwriting at the Academy of the Arts, Berlin. He was a dramaturg and writer in residence at the Schaubühne Berlin. His plays (such as THE UGLY ONE, FIREFACE, A PIECE OF PLASTIC,) are translated into more than 30 languages, have been successfully produced worldwide at the Schaubühne Berlin, the Young Vic, London, National Theatre Oslo, the Royal Court Theatre, Théâtre national de la Colline in Paris , La Scala, Paris among many others and have won several awards. As a translator he has translated works by William Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde, as well as contemporary plays by writers such as Martin Crimp, Alan Ayckbourn, Sarah Kane and recently David Adjmi (Stereophonic) into German.
His most recent trilogy consists of the plays EX, ELLEN BABIĆ and EGAL, which have all been premiered internationally at theaters such as Rikstheatre in Stockholm, Sweden, the National Theater of Reykjavik, the Burgtheater Vienna.
As a director, Marius von Mayenburg has worked at the Schaubühne Berlin, Residenztheater in Munich, Schauspiel Frankfurt, Riksteater Stockholm, Nationaltheater Oslo among others.
Prizes (selection):
1998 – Frankfurt Authors’ Foundation Prize for FEUERGESICHT
1997 – Kleist Award for Emerging Playwrights for FEUERGESICHT
Works (most recent)
MACBETH by William Shakespeare (adapted and directed by Marius von Mayenburg)
17.10.2025
Nationaltheater Oslo, Norway
The victorious Scottish generals Macbeth and Banquo encounter three witches on the battlefield. The witches prophesy to Macbeth that he will become king. However, they also prophesy that Banquo’s child will inherit the throne. When Macbeth tells his wife of the prophecies, she hatches a cruel plan and stokes Macbeth’s ambition. The stage is thus set for a bloody path to the throne. Paranoia and bloodlust increasingly take hold, and the couple ultimately stop at nothing in their struggle to reach the top – and to stay there.
In his newly dramatised adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, director and playwright Marius von Mayenburg creates an apocalyptic and dystopian world centred on the serial killer Macbeth for the Norwegian stage.
EGAL
2023
Premiere: National Theater Reykjavik, IS
Simone arrives home from a business trip. Erik, her partner, is in a bad mood. She has built a career for herself. He takes care of the children and ekes out a living editing and translating for a publishing house. Erik feels like a looser because of his family responsibilities. Simone also has the feeling of suffocating.
They wanted to be avant-garde and bitterly realize that equality and success at work combined with family are loose promises of capitalism. A gift brought along and a ringing cell phone turn everything upside down: what is important to them and what doesn’t matter?
ELLEN BABIĆ
2022
Premiere: National Theater Reykjavik, IS
When Astrid invites her boss Wolfram Balderkamp to an informal work meeting to her place, her partner Klara is outraged. Balderkamp teaches at the school where Klara was Astrid’s student ten years ago. What happens when he remembers her? Besides, she can’t forgive his ‘learning methods’. What does Astrid want from him?
Like a spider, Wolfram roams the apartment, weaving a dangerous web with his questioning: Where did the two meet? And when exactly? Whether this one bath towel was gifted to Astrid by students of the current year? And what exactly had happened with that one girl on the class trip?
EX
2021
Premiere: Riksteater Stockholm, SE
Daniel and Sibylle, married, two children, both have a career, both have settled into their upper middle class life without love and full of reproaches and resentment against each other. The picture-book façade seems to crumble when Daniel comes home late again and receives a phone call from his ex-girlfriend Franziska. As Franziska appears at the door, the trio beginns a bitter game of power, truth and betrayal, at the end of which there are no winners.