Odor in the dramaturgical paratext (Elza's land by Yaroslava Pulinovich)

Paratext in drama is organized so that a dramaturgical text could be recoded into a theatrical text; however, in a paratext, there are some elements that cannot be transferred to a performance in their original form, so they require the theatrical director to look for a specific way of interpretation. Moreover, in a dramaturgical paratext, there can be found some elements which have a sort of nature that resists the very possibility of transferring them into theatrical space; among them are the indications of odors. However, the obvious non-stage nature of such indications does not negate the fact that they may have the semantics which is important for the understanding of the meaning of the entire text, and accordingly, for the further theatrical interpretations. The article considers a remark containing an indication of odor from the play Elza ’s Land by Yaroslava Pulinovich. This is a remark from the finale of the first scene of the play. The article examines how the remark, which has a deliberately epic character in the generic plan, is in spatial confrontation with the entire scene preceding it and contains an indication of the smell that clearly resists theatricalization, semantically unfolds into the rest of the text. It is concluded that this indication is important in terms of meaning. These meanings can be grasped by readers of the play; also, there can be found ways of visual and auditory representation of these meanings on stage. The observations made in the article can also be applied to some other off-stage elements of dramaturgical paratext.