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PREFACE —to> LINDA BEN-ZvI Influencing Beckett / Beckett Influencing celebrates two special events in international Beckett studies. The essays in this volume, originally presented in June 2017 at the Samuel Beckett Working Group meeting held at the Karoli Gaspar University of the Reformed Church in Hungary and organized by Professor Mariko Hori Tanaka, Dr. Anita Rakéczy, and myself, was the first International Beckett Conference ever held in Hungary. The Beckett Working Group — a part of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR), the largest theatre organization in the world, now in its 63" year — also marked its twenty-first anniversary. Begun in Israel in 1996, the year the IFTR’s annual meeting was held at Tel Aviv University, it is now the second oldest of the twenty-three Working Groups in IFTR; it is also the only one dedicated to the work of one playwright, an indication of Beckett’s unique standing in Theatre Studies, as his plays continue to be studied and performed in ever-increasing numbers thirty years after his death. From its beginnings, the Beckett Working Group has been international, drawing participants from around the world. At that first meeting I convened, the eighteen present came from eight different countries. This mix of cultures, theatre histories, and performance styles enlivened our discussions and enriched the essays that resulted. From its inception, the group has also been comprised of both Beckett luminaries in the field, including Martin Esslin, author of The Theatre of the Absurd, and Ruby Cohn, one of the first and foremost Beckett scholars, as well as young doctoral and post-doctoral researchers attending a Beckett conference for the first time. Yet what was unique from the start was the egalitarian and open nature of our meetings and discussions, which encouraged established and new Beckett scholars to intermingle and share research and ideas on an equal footing, with none of that professional hierarchy that far too often shapes academic conferences and hinders younger participants from critiquing or questioning the research of established figures in the field. For example, after twenty-one years, fourteen of which I chaired the group, I can still recall one young, post-doctorate woman at our first meeting presenting an original essay on Beckett’s handling of women characters in his plays, using as her critical approach recent feminist theory. It was an approach “Qe
