You should assign the controller name to a view variable you can call from within the view/layout scope. Typically its bad design to call the request/controller/... from the view scope, you should already have all the data processing done by then.
So in your controller:
PHP Code:
$this->view->assign('controllerName', $this->_request->getParam('controller'));
Then in the layout or view:
PHP Code:
<?= $this->controllerName; ?>