The one-act play “Not I” (1972) by the Nobel Prize winner for literature Samuel Beckett (1906 – 1989) is considered as one of the masterpieces in the genre. A woman’s mouth, illuminated in the darkness by a sole spotlight, unleashes a fractured monologue about her sad, isolated life, while a silent “listener” looks on and occasionally raises his arm in a gesture of helpless compassion. In Dobchev’ s “installation” with live music her story is severed into three expressive female monologues. It celebrates the 100th anniversary of Beckett’s birth.

Beckett looks into the most hidden depths of human soul, when “this whole early April morning light” disappears and the consciousness that is still alive sinks into darkness. What is there? What happens with us there? …Our performance shakes off the metaphysical dead-lock of the situation and tries to multiplicate it by tripling the protagonist of the play. Three women’s mouths, three attempts to confess/ justify/ humble the meaning of existence with its ending.
Ivan Dobchev