Mayenburg, Marius von

(1972- )

   Playwright. Mayenburg completed studies in playwriting at Berlin's University of the Arts in 1998 and the following year his Feuergesicht (Fireface) was selected for the Berliner Theatertreffen. Fireface had premiered at the Munich Kammerspiele in 1999, the same year Theater Heute named him Germany's "best young playwright"; he also became dramaturg of Berlin's Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz that year. Fireface had its English-language premiere the following year at the Royal Court Theater in London. Mayenburg's Parasiten (Parasites) premiered in 2000 at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. In these plays, as in his first play Haarmann (written while still a student), Mayenburg concentrated on title characters who are violent psychopaths; they murder people, set fire to churches and schools, and otherwise abuse everyone around them. Haarmann was based on an actual criminal case in the 1920s, when a police informer of that name went on a killing rampage by luring more than 20 young men to his apartment in Hannover and murdering them by biting through their throats and later eating parts of their bodies. Such characters (including Kurt in Fireface and Ringo in Parasites) interest Mayenburg because of the intense conflict within themselves; outside influences have little impact on them, since they feel imprisoned within their own selves. Such figures are obsessed with cruelty, against others and ultimately against themselves. Mayenburg has been awarded several prizes and awards for his playwriting, including the Kleist Award from the Frankfurt Playwrights' Foundation.