Samuel Beckett - Not I (1973)

Imagine being seated in a theater- all the lights go dark- all the exit lights have been removed- even the lights in the bathroom have been taken out- and the doors are locked, so you are there for however long the piece will go on. And then a single spotlight- a single spotlight on a mouth, and all around the mouth is black, and everywhere else in the theater is black, and the mouth starts speaking, frantically, subject matter unclear but implied, with so much intensity and emotion.

This is what Samuel Beckett envisioned for his 1973 production of Not I, starring and introduced by Billie Whitelaw.

Visually, there is only one thing to see- the mouth. And when the mouth is moving in the spotlight and it is the only thing you see, you can begin to see it as a separate entity, not connected to a body at all, but just a mouth. There are so many associations that we have with the mouth- what it does, what it says- the mouth is very powerful. We experience things with our whole bodies but if we want to talk about them we need only the mouth- and when shown alone, without the body, the mouth becomes such an expressive creature. If this piece were presented with the whole body showing, much of our attention would be distracted from the mouth and go to other parts of the body, because the body as a whole has many different expressive elements. However, Beckett wanted only the mouth, only this one small piece of the body, to tell the story.

From the mouth comes sounds- words, rhythms, pitches. In this piece, I find it hard to make out all of the words, even though they are being spoken with the utmost clarity. I believe that it's difficult to make out all of the words because the rhythm and pitch of the voice, not to mention the rise and fall in intensity throughout, are so powerful on their own. They distract from the words, but in a way that definitely adds to the piece.

Beckett has managed to use the mouth and words in ways that pull many dimensions from these things.

If you haven't seen this piece I highly recommend it. It is so brilliantly constructed and executed, with so much coming from what may at first seem to be so minimal. I have found it to be a huge inspiration.