Marius von Mayenburg (born in 1972 in Munich) is a German playwright, dramaturg, director and translator who studied playwriting at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. In 1998 he started working as a dramaturg for the theatre of the young, Baracke, under the auspices of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, in which Thomas Ostermeier directed Shopping and Fucking by Mark Ravenhill, marking the beginning of their cooperation. Mayenburg translated several plays by Shakespeare that were staged by Ostermeier - Hamlet (2008), Measure for Measure (2011), Richard III (2015), as well as Much Ado About Nothing (2013) which he translated and directed himself. Since 1999 he has been an in-house writer, dramaturg, translator and director at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin where Ostermeier staged high-profile plays by Sarah Kane and Mark Ravenhill. Since 2009 Mayenburg has directed his own plays Confused (Perplex, 2010) and Martyr (Märtyrer, written in 2012 and staged in 2013). In Residentztheatre in Munich he directed Call Me God (2012) which he co-wrote with Gian Mario Cervo, Albert Ostermaier and Rafael Spregelburd, and Bunbury (2013) by Oscar Wilde. His first major success was the play Fire Face (Feuergesicht), winning the Kleist Award for a young playwright in 1997.

Considered one of the most successful and penetrating contemporary German playwrights, Mayenburg’s plays have been translated into more than thirty languages and have been performed in Germany and many other countries.
Invariably, his plays provide an analysis of contemporary society. Mayenburg is most intrigued by the concept of family and the complexity of family and other human relations. Being a perspicuous observer of the anomalies of contemporary society, his plays are characterized by a lack of restraint and indulgence combined by razor-sharp humour.
Benjamin is a teenage boy who refuses to take part in school swimming lessons. His mother suspects drugs and possibly his sense of discomfort, caused by a teenage perception and acceptance of one's own body. In no time she finds out that drugs are not to be blamed. It was something else that caused an equally strong addiction: the Bible. Benjamin has found faith and God, which is why swimming in mixed-sex classes is an insult to his religious zeal. He declares war on corruption and sinfulness, refusing to go swimming, as he finds girls’ bodies in bikinis offensive, and, as his classmate Lydia soon founds out, conducive to other sensations as well. His biology teacher somewhat recklessly responds to his provocations and engages in an ideological, moral and philosophical war with unpredictable consequences.
Written in the form of a film script, Martyr is composed of twenty-seven short scenes illuminating Benjamin's religious zeal. His newly found extreme views are an enigma for his mother. Terrorizing his teachers and classmates, Benjamin soon becomes a pain in the neck for his dearest and nearest. He assumes the role of a martyr, aiming to expose the flaws of the system, as well as those inherent in a family, school and theology. As the play evolves, it turns out that he is actually the least of a martyr.
Martyr is a subtle and multi-layered play, equalling the madness and passion of puberty with the madness and passion of religious fanaticism and extremism. Fundamentalism is confronted by tolerance and political correctness, while provocation can trigger unimaginable consequences. Is Benjamin a martyr, a devil’s advocate, or just an adolescent loner? This provocative, witty and poignant play deals with the precarious traps of contemporary extremism.