About the work
Extremely brief one-act piece by Samuel Beckett, written in English as "Breath" and first staged on 16 June 1969 at the Eden Theatre in New York, where it served as a short curtain-raiser for Kenneth Tynan's revue "Oh! Calcutta!"; its British premiere followed in October 1969 at the Close Theatre Club in Glasgow.
Plot
On an empty stage littered with rubbish, a brief cry is followed by a single slow breath: the light brightens as the stage inhales and dims as it exhales, then five seconds of silence, an identical second cry, and darkness. No human figure ever appears.
Cultural significance
Lasting only about 35 seconds, "Breath" stands among Beckett's most radical reductions of theatre: a single breath standing in for the whole span from birth to death.