‘Not I’ by Samuel Beckett is a short play that consists only of a monologue performed by a floating mouth. It is the rare outburst of a woman who lives most of her life mute, triggered by some ambiguous event to relate her sufferings. Like most of Beckett it is bleak and has so many possible interpretations yet no clear explanations, but it does really get you thinking. The disembodiment of character is effective on so many levels, with the fractured speech and the role of the speech disability, an ongoing buzzing, the mouth being the only visible body part and a character narrating who seems to exist on the plain between life and death. It was a really fascinating short read but weighing it up against the others of Beckett’s short plays I have read I would say I preferred it to ‘Krapp’s Last Tape’ and ‘Footfalls’ but is nowhere near as disturbing and thought-provoking as ‘Rockaby’. The bleak images and stagecraft in each thought are equally seared into my brain. 

Though in final note … why … were there … so many … ellipses …