ABSTRACT
Linda Ben-Zvi's study of Not I is the most recent of the long series triggered by Kristeva's essay. The 'not I' to whom the Unnamable refers becomes the ostensible speaker of the 1972 play, the medium and gender changed the image the same: a 'cretinous mouth, red, blubber and slobbering in solitary confinement'. Theater critics have often commented on the revolutionary nature of Beckett's use of stage space in Not I, his act of reconstituting the very heart of drama action making language not merely a vehicle for thought but the source of the action itself. Billie Whitelaw remembers being furious when friends who had attended a performance of Not I at the Royal Court Theatre in London came backstage and asked her if Mouth had been videotaped, since they assumed the image flickering in the dark was not 'real'.
