Is 'Aroma-turgy' The Next Big Thing In Theatre Design?

Smell is something we usually don't think of as being designed into a production. If a character is smoking a (usually clove) cigarette on stage or if someone is frying up a meal, you might get a whiff of the aroma from your seat, though it might not reach those in the back of the house until the scene is over.

But aside from unavoidable instances, Mark Blankenship writes in American Theatre how designers occasionally incorporate that powerful sense of smell into productions.

At San Francisco's New Conservatory Theatre Center, M.J. Kaufman's SAGITARIOUS PONDEROSA has a scene taking place near a Ponderosa pine tree in an Oregon forest.

"It's a super-distinctive smell that not everyone would recognize," says the playwright, "but I still wanted (the audience) to have a sense of it. It's a super-specific, unique experience to be in a dark, forested area, and all you can smell is the butterscotch smell of this tree. I felt like that was part of the magical landscape in that scene."

The design team worked out a system to heat wax that's infused with essential oil of ponderosa bark. However, they quickly learned that smells cannot always be controlled.

"There are pockets of the room that smell more than others," says director Ben Randle. "Depending on where you are in the room, you might smell something, or you might not."

"Within a couple of seconds," he adds, "you've absorbed it as the smell of the room. So that's another challenge with this; it has to become more of an atmospheric component of the show, as opposed to something narrative, where you're saying, 'This smell happens at this exact moment, and it's tied directly to this one event.'"

Greg Meeh, president of J & M Special Effects, has designed a blast of jasmine for Katori Hall's OUR LADY OF KIBEHO at New York's Signature Theatre and a "horse-like smell" for a scene featuring menacing balrogs in the musical adaptation of THE LORD OF THE RINGS.

"It's a lot easier, and less expensive and time consuming, to deliver a subliminal aroma," he says, but he adds that even a subtle atmospheric odor has to be carefully designed.

"With LORD OF THE RINGS we were trying to play around with something that could be 'spring,' and as soon as you go there, everything you can come up with has been in some urinal or some bathroom or some disinfectant or some baby wipe," he explains. "Scent memory can be very strong. When you have a scent with any bit of reference to something like that, you're not eliciting the appropriate response. Unless, of course, your scene is in a urinal."

Third Rail Projects is currently staging a fully immersive experience THE GRAND PARADISE in a warehouse in Brooklyn. Set at a fictional beach resort in the 1970s, audience members enter various rooms where there are encounters with different actors. Smells have been carefully curated throughout, such as the dab of vintage cologne on the pillowcase of a hustler.

"Maybe it's three people a night that walk away going, 'Oh my God, that guy smelled just like my boyfriend in high school,'" says co-artistic director Jennine Willett. "But I think that's a win. It's great when people have a moment to connect to something from a personal space."

She adds that THE GRAND PARADISE is created to make audience members feel like protagonists, which is why everyone has the freedom to explore and interact with it on their own terms.

"That's why we go through the trouble to find these things that trigger memory and trigger a personal response. There's been a fascination with seeing if there's a away to create some part of an emotion in a theatrical experience-if there's some way to take you back to what you felt like in a particular moment. And smell is a big part of that."

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