Stefan Hornbach

Friedrich looks like a smurf. At least that’s what his mother says, and she must know, for she sees him constantly ever since he moved back in with her. The lump looks like a date or a grapefruit or a sea cucumber. At least that’s how Friedrich imagines it. And surprisingly, he might not even have a tumour, but humour. At least Friedrich believes the doctor could have said that. And that’s really a side-splitter. Even when you think about his old flame Jana showering him with attention now, of all times, to such a degree that, for the first time in his life, Friedrich would like to be able to get rid of her somehow.

Stefan Hornbach’s highly acclaimed debut play Über meine Leiche describes the standstill of a young man, caused by his cancer diagnosis. Facing his possible death, Friedrich overwrites reality with an optimistic and humorous parallel reality. This doubling leads to a highly scurrilous and poetically touching examination of his young life, looking at sense and nonsense. A strange fight for survival has started.


Über meine Leiche is the winning play of the Osnabrücker Dramatikerpreis 2015. It was also one of the three winning plays (which included a staging at the Burgtheater in Vienna) of the Autorentheatertagen 2016 at the Deutsche Theater in Berlin.