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INTRODUCTION
who not only allowed him to translate many of his works, but also enabled
him to conduct research at the Samuel Beckett Collection in Reading. Ihis
book ends with Trinity College Dublins practitioners Nicholas E. Johnson,
Néill O’Dwyer, and Enda Bates, whose essay “Samuel Beckett’s Play in Digital
Culture: Technologies of Influence” documents their Intermedial Play project
that experiments with Beckett’s Play through digital culture. With a PTZ
(Pan-Tilt-Zoom) robotic teleconferencing camera (designed for surveillance
applications) and control unit, a live performance of Play was broadcast
remotely to an audience in a different location, conceptually paving the way
for direct user control over the interrogation in the later Virtual Play project.
Such experiments expand the possibility of theatre that is not limited to its
material presence, challenging notions of theatrical time and space.
The first Beckett production ever staged in Hungary was Waiting for Godot
in Thalia Theatre, 1965. Its co-director Karoly Kazimir* made considerable
efforts to push forward with his bold plan to direct Godot, despite opposition
from the authorities and censors. Gyorgy Aczél, a communist politician who
ruled the cultural life of Janos Kadar’s regime in Hungary from 1956 to 1988,
gave him permission to stage Beckett’s play only a restricted number of times
(the original agreement was about three performances) in front of a small
audience. So Kazimir opened Thalia Studio, a 100-seat space, the first studio
in Hungary, and Waiting for Godot ran a hundred times to packed houses,"
encouraging artists and inspiring several future Beckett productions. Fifty¬
two years later, the scholars and artists in this book gathered for the first
Hungarian Beckett conference. We hope that many more will follow, and that
this volume will be an influencer to upcoming Beckett scholars, as well as a
contribution to Beckett Studies in Hungary and worldwide.
The Editors
4 Karoly Kazimir was the Head Artistic Director of Thalia Theatre from 1961, then became its
Managing Director from 1972 to 1991.
See more about the first Hungarian Beckett production and its reception history in Anita
Rak6czy: The Godots that Arrived in Hungary, Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd’hui, Vol. 29,
No. 2 (2017), 285-297.
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