THE SCENT OF PRESENCE: FROM THE PARADOX OF THE ACTOR TO THE PARADOX OF THE SIMULACRUM
THE SCENT OF PRESENCE: FROM THE PARADOX OF THE ACTOR TO THE PARADOX OF THE SIMULACRUM

Summary/Abstract: This article argues that acting theory has always been shaped by the perceptual and social conditions of its time — each methodology a response to the ruptures of its era. Stanislavski and Grotowski represent perhaps the most visible layers of this palimpsest, yet each was written for an audience that has since profoundly changed — and that audience, in its original form, is no longer there. In an age in which time has lost what Han calls its depth — its scent — and in which representation has lost its connection to the real, acting theory has yet to fully reckon with the collapse of shared presence. In this context, this article opens to discussion whether Zeami’s concept of ma — the structured interval between actor and audience — may offer precisely the new layer that acting theory needs today.

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