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The Arts Council Playography Na Gaeilge

Plays

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Not I

OVERVIEW

  • Playwright

    Samuel Beckett 

  • Setting

    Stage in darkness but for MOUTH, upstage audience right, about 8 feet above stage level.
    AUDITOR, downstage audience left, tall standing figure, sex undeterminable, enveloped from head to foot in loose black djellaba

  • Synopsis

    An actress is seated on stage with just her mouth spot-lit. The mouth delivers a long stream of consciousness. Evasion is the principle theme, as is highlighted by Beckett's note to the text in which the mouth's chief endeavour throughout the play is a 'vehement refusal to relinquish the third person'. The mouth undergoes a desperate struggle to avoid saying 'I', marked by four moments of crisis in which her monologue becomes a question and answer with an inner voice not heard by the audience.

  • Play Type

    Plays General

    Number Of Acts

    One Act

    • Cast size

  • Male

    1

  • Female

    1

  • Total

    2

  • Cast Notes

    The writer has specified that the sex of the auditor character be undeterminable.

Original Production

  • Date of First Production

    September 1972

  • Production Notes

    First produced by the Forum Theater, the Lincoln Center, New York.

  • Venue Notes

    First performed at the Forum Theater, the Lincoln Center, New York.

Original Cast  
Mouth Jessica Tandy

Published Scripts

Rights Information

  • Territory

    All Territories

  • Rights Type

    All Rights

  • Contact

    The Estate of Samuel Beckett

  • Address

    c/o Curtis Brown Haymarket House, 28/29 Haymarket,
    London SW1Y 4SP
    England

  • Phone

    + 44 (0) 20 7396 6600

  • Email

    cb@curtisbrown.co.uk

  • Website

    www.curtisbrown.co.uk

Source Of Information

The information for this entry was taken from 'Samuel Beckett: Collected Plays' (Faber and Faber, 1986) and from various other sources.