In Search of Scent in Theatre

Yıl 2024, Sayı: 72, 36 - 48, 12.06.2024

Gamze Şentürk Tatar

Öz

Theatre is an art form that brings together visual, auditory, and physical elements, establishing a strong connection between the audience and the performance. This synesthetic art employs an aesthetic language that engages all the senses, creating a unique experience for the audience, where the amalgamation of scent, sound, and visuals offers a multi-sensory journey. The audience experience plays as a holistic bodily encounter, ensuring active engagement. In theatre, the sense of smell is often overlooked. However, in recent years, experimental, innovative, and avant-garde theatrical works have opened up new possibilities for using scents on stage. Surprisingly, the use of scent in theatre can be traced back to ancient times. This study aims to explore the history of the sense of smell, its origin and its use in theatre. Furthermore, it traces how scent has influenced the theatrical experience and evolved into a fundamental element from the ancient era to the early modern period.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Theatre, Synesthesia, Smell, Origin

Tiyatroda Kokunun İzinden

Öz

Tiyatro görsel, işitsel ve bedensel ögeleri bir araya getiren, seyirci ile oyun arasında güçlü bir bağ kurabilen bir sanattır. Bu sinestetik sanat, seyirci ile oyun arasında bir bağlantı kurarak, tüm duyuları içeren estetik bir dil kullanır. Koku, ses ve görüntü gibi duyuların birleşimi, seyirciye eşsiz bir deneyim sunar. İzleyici, oyunları bütünleşik bir bedensel deneyim olarak yaşar ve bu sayede aktif bir katılım sağlanır. Tiyatroda, koku genellikle göz ardı edilen bir duyu olarak ortaya çıkar. Ancak son yıllarda tiyatroda yapılan deneysel, yenilikçi ve avangart çalışmalar, sahnede koku kullanımına yeni olanaklar sunmuştur. Tiyatroda koku kullanımı aslında Antik döneme kadar uzanan bir geçmişe sahiptir. Bu çalışma, tiyatroda koku duyusunun tarihini, kökenini ve kullanımını incelemeyi amaçlar. Aynı zamanda, kokunun tiyatro deneyimini nasıl etkilediğini ve nasıl temel bir unsur haline geldiğinin izini Antik dönemden erken modern döneme değin sürer.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Tiyatro, Sineztezi, Koku, Köken

Kaynakça

• Alipaz L. E. (2015). There’s nose business like show business: Fragrance in the performing arts, Part I. Fragrantica https://www.fragrantica.com/news/There-s-Nose-Business-Like-Show-Business-Fragrance-in-the-Performing-Arts-Part-I-7363.html
• Altick, Richard D. (1954, Spring). Hamlet and the odor of mortality. Shakespeare Quarterly, 5(2). 167-176. Oxford University Press.
• Areh, I., & Jenič, B. P. (2021, December). The Art of immersion with smell and sensorial theatre. Language Amfiteater, 9(2). 102-118.
• Banes, S. (2007) ‘Olfactory performances’. In S. Banes and A. Lepecki (Eds.). The senses in performance (pp. 29–37). Routledge.
• Baert B. (2013). An odour. a taste. a touch. impossible to describe: noli me tangere and the senses. In B. W. De- Göttler C. (Ed.). Religion and the senses in early modern Europe (pp. 111-151). Brill.
• Benedetto, S. D. (2011). The provocation of the senses in contemporary theatre. Taylor & Francis.
• Bernstein, D. (2014, July 28). Can you smell that smell? It’s theatrical scent design. The Clyde Fitch Report, <http:// www.clydefitchreport.com/2014/07/scent-design-theatre-play-audience/>
• Blankenship, M. (2016, February 24). Aroma-turgy: What’s smell got to do with it?. American Theatre, https://www.americantheatre.org/2016/02/24/aroma-turgy-whats-smell-got-to-do-with-it/.
• Bork, H. (2021). The funny smell(s) of Latin comedy. SCS Virtual Meeting.
• Bradley M. (2014). Art and the senses: The artistry of bodies, stages and cities in the Greco-Roman world. In J. Toner (Ed.). A cultural history of the senses in antiquity 55 BC-500 AD (pp. 183–208). Bloomsbury.
• Bradley M. (2015). Introduction: Smell and the ancient senses. In Bradley M. (Ed.). Smell and the ancient senses (pp. 1–16). Routledge.
• Classen, C., Howes, D., & Synnott, A. (1994). Aroma: The cultural history of smell. Routledge.
• Clements A. (2013). “Looking mustard”: Greek popular epistemology and the meaning of δριμύς, in Butler S. & Purves A. (Eds.). Synaesthesia and the ancient senses (pp. 71–88). Routledge
• Critten, R. & Kern-Stahler, A. (2016). “Smell in the York corpus christi plays”. In Annette Kern-Ståhler et al. (Eds.). The five senses in medieval and early modern England, Brill.
• Dugan H. (2008). Scent of a woman: Performing the politics of smell in early modern England. The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 38(2), 229–252.
• Dugan, H. (2011). The ephemeral history of perfume: scent and sense in early modern England. Johns Hopkins University.
• Dugan, H. (2014). “As dirty as smithfield and as stinking every whit’: the smell of the Hope Theatre”. In Karim-Cooper, F. & Stern T. (Eds.). Shakespeare’s theatres and the effects of performance (pp. 195-214), Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Faruolo, F. (2019, October 31). Scents as “atmosphere creators”: Recent experiences of a stage director. https://magazine.moellhausen.com/scents-as-atmosphere-creators-recent-experiences-of-a-stage-director
• Feagin, S. L. (2018, April 2). Olfaction and space in the theatre. The British Journal of Aesthetics, 58(2), 131–146.
• Fischer-Lichte, E. (2004). Performatif estetik. (T. Acil, Çev.). Ayrıntı Yayınları.
• Fleischer, M. (2012). Incense & decadents: Symbolist theatre’s use of scent. In S. Banes & A. Lepeki (Eds.). The senses in performance, Taylor & Francis.
• Forbes, R. J. (1965). Studies in ancient technology. 3, Leiden.
• Gibbons. B. (1987). Koku duyumuz. (Z. T. Selçuk, Çev.). National Geography.
• Haill, C. (1987). Buy a bill of the play!. Apollo 126, New Series 302.
• Harris J. G. (2007). The smell of Macbeth. Shakespeare Quarterly, 58, 465–486.
• Hawking F. K. (2015, February 22). The (under)use of scent in theatre. Isis http://isismagazine.org.uk/2015/02/the-underuse-of-scent-in-theatre/
• Hill, L. & Paris, H. (2014). Performing proximity: Curious intimacies. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Holland, K. R. (2023). An introduction to theatrical scent design as compared to traditional design areas with a consideration for the scientifically notated physical and emotional effects on the human body as it potentially relates to future creative endeavors: a framework. (Master Thesis), Virginia Commonwealth University.
• Jenner M. (2011). Follow your nose? Smell, smelling and their histories. American Historical Review, 116, 335–351.
• Kennedy, C. E. (2015). Comparisons are odorous: The early modern English olfactory and literary imagination. [Dissertation, Ohio State University]. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1437648106
• Kennedy, C. E. (2016). The Synæsthetia of Shakespeare’s olfactory poetics. Shakespeare Association of America.
• Kenny, A. (2019). A deal of stinking breath’: The smell of contagion in the early modern playhouse. In D. Chalk & M. Floyd-Wilson (Eds.). Contagion and the Shakespearean stage, Palgrave Macmillan.
• Khıdırov, B.K. (2016). Mekân algısı ve koku: Kokunun mekân tasarımına potansiyel katkıları. (Yayımlanmamış Yüksek Lisans Tezi), Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar Üniversitesi.
• Koloski-Ostrow A. O. (2015). Roman urban smells: The archaeological evidence. In M. Bradley (Ed.). Smell and the ancient senses (pp. 90–109). Routledge.
• Lather Arethusa, A. (2018, September 27). Olfactory theater: Tracking scents in Aeschylus's Oresteia. 51(1), 33-54, Johns Hopkins University Press. https://doi.org/10.1353/are.2018.0001
• Manniche, L. & Forman, W. (1999). Sacred Luxuries: Fragrance, aromatherapy, and cosmetics in ancient Egypt. Cornell University Press.
• McDermott, J. R. (2012). Shakespeare in another sense: A study of physical and textual perception in four plays. University of Toronto.
• Messier, G. (2022, December 4). Hollywood and its efforts to introduce the wacky world of smell-o-vision. Today Found Out, https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2022/12/hollywood-and-its-efforts-to-introduce-the-wacky-world-of-smell-o-vision/
• Mill, A. J. (1969). Mediaeval plays in Scotland. St. Andrews University publications. Montaigne, M. d. (2010, January 12). Of smells and odors. I. Florio (Ed.). Early English Books Online.
• Nagler, D. (1997). Towards the smell of mortality: Shakespeare and ideas of smell 1588–1625. The Cambridge Quarterly, XXVI(1), 42–58.
• Pavis, P. & Brown, A. (2016). The Routledge dictionary of performance and contemporary theatre sensation. Routledge.
• Shakespeare, W. (2010). Julius Caesar. (A. Çakırcı, Çev.). Athena Yayıncılık.
• Shakespeare, W. (1958). Kral Lear. (İ. Şahinbaş, Çev.). Maarif Basımevi
• Shakespeare, W. (1981). Macbeth. (S. Eyüboğlu, Çev.). Remzi Kitabevi.
• Shakespeare, W. (2000). Yok Yere Yaygara. (B. Bozkurt, Çev.). Remzi Kitabevi
• Slater M. (1997). Three pre-surrealist plays. Oxford University Press.
• Spence, C. (2021, January-February). Scent in the context of live performance. Iperception. 12(1).
• Steingass, B. (2020). Othello-dor: Racialized odor in and on Othello. Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance. 22(37), https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.22.03
• Sukic, C. (2015). I smell false Latin, dunghill for unguem”: Odours and Aromas in Love’s Labour’s Lost. Actes des congrès de la Société française Shakespeare, 32.
• Szczepanski, C. v. (2020). Scent-er stage discussing the possible reasons behind the prevalent lack of the use of scent, as a design tool, in contemporary theatre. BA Theatre Design.
• The (under)use of scent in theatre. (2015). The Isis (isismagazine.org.uk), https://isismagazine.org.uk/2015/02/the-underuse-of-scent-in-theatre/
• Toporišič, T. (2021). Performing touch and smell: the liminality of the senses. Theatre and Interart Studies, P6-0376, 36-49.
• Tullett, W. (2023). Smell and the past noses, Archives, Narratives. Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Vanhaesebrouck K. (2014, March). Review of the ephemeral history of perfume: scent and sense in early modern England by Holly Dugan. Johns Hopkins University, Cultural History, 3(1), 85-87. (https://doi.org/10.3366/cult.2014.0057)
• Viccei, R. (2022). ‘Balsama et crocum per gradus theatri fluere iussit’ (Ha Hadr. 19.5): The contemporary perception of smells and senses in the roman theatre imagines – classical receptions in the visual and performing arts. In F. Carl à -Uhink & M. Lindner (Eds.), (pp. 207-224). Bloomsbury Academic.