Not I

In reading Not I, I could definitely see how Samuel Beckett is considered a minimalist. Either all action and no dialogue, like in Act Without Words, or all dialogue and no setting or action. I'm really interested to see this one acted out because I know I'm not getting the emotional impact of all of this from just what I'm reading. I could tell towards the end the speaker was probably getting increasingly frantic, but I couldn't pick up the emotion from it.
It's really interesting looking at these two plays right after the other because they're so contrasting but they're still similar. In Act Without Words, Beckett is playing with the character to show what happens to characters in plays. And again, there's no dialogue, only emotion. Not I still has the raw emotion but it's going to come across comepletely differently because all we really have to look at is a mouth and the Auditor - neither of which gives us a face as far as I can tell. So the emotion has to come strictly from the inflection and the words the mouth is speaking. The way I saw it was the mouth was what the woman was saying, and she was obviously going crazy and speaking about herself, but because it was detached so much, you had to sort of wait until the end when she's babbling about nothing to really get that. I don't understand the part the Auditor plays, though I know when there are interruptions it's presumably coming from him. (I don't know why it's a male in my mind either, when I see the Mouth as a female - hopefully this makes more sense when I see it played out!)

Act Without Words

I didn't really think Act Without Words was very interesting until the very end. Things kept appearing for him to interact with, and yes, it was obvious he was being manipulated and played with by some higher power, but I didn't really understand why.
I still don't know why, but it was at the end that I finally figured out the "point" of the play, if there was one. When the big cube was pulled from underneath him, and he's laying on his side, he's fighting whatever is attempting to control him by doing nothing, but it seems like he's just giving up. It's hard to say whether he's completely despondent or if he's rebelling because the actions would be the same either way. When I was looking up Samuel Beckett, it made me wonder if he sees himself as the protagonist who's continually being teased and tempted with things he can't have. I also wonder who he sees as the higher power that's playing with him.
I think the most important thing that he was being teased with was the water, which if he were really in a dire situation would help, though by the way it was described, as "a tiny carafe, to which is attached a huge label inscribed WATER," didn't seem as if it'd even be enough to quench his thirst, which is another example of the futility of his struggles.

Mud

Mud was by far one of the most depressing things I'd ever read. When I read the description of the characters, I didn't realize that by "simple," the author meant simple-minded and so even as I started reading the play, I was kind of going "Oh, dear," in my head. While we're on the subject of the character description, I didn't think he seemed good-hearted at all. He seemed vindictive and mean, and from the first scene I didn't realize why Mae put up with him. I'm glad Henry put Mae in a position where she had to explain why she and Lloyd lived together because I was leaning toward the assumption that they were siblings, though there was this weird sexual tension going on between them. I didn't like any of the characters. They all seemed off to me, even though that was obviously the point, I just disliked all of them. They were all too human, I guess. Everything I see that has a mentally challenged person (I'm assuming this about Lloyd) in it has someone that's a dedicated caretaker for them, and it didn't seem to me that Mae had done a very good job.
Of course the other obvious thing to talk about is the ending, which both surprised me and didn't. Mae leaving was probably the best thing she could do, but I didn't expect her to be shot! Henry raising no objections also threw me - though he was uneducated and depended on her, I thought he was at least somewhat moral. I don't know the time that passed between them living together, but he must have had somewhere to live before he moved in there.