Tuesday, January 19, 2010
In Colorado, lobbying to keep smoking onstage
latimes.com: "Actors can't smoke - even tobacco-free cigarettes - during a play, no matter how crucial smoking is to the script, the state's high court rules. Two theater groups will continue to battle the ban."
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8 comments:
I continue to find this debate ridiculous. I feel that there are so many other forums in which the battle against cigarettes can, and should be fought. I do not think that the stage is a place where cigarettes are A. hurting the actors, or B. promoting smoking. Generally if a character smokes, it tends to say something negative about a character. If the government wants to fight against cigarettes, ban them elsewhere.
This is article is very silly. I have always thought that it had been ridiculous when an actor has to mime on stage, or the director change the writing to accommodate such rules. I especially find it spiteful when, for instance, theater companies in Colorado objected to the ban because they had brought up a perfectly harmless solution in herb cigarettes. I love the rebuttal to the line about how real guns arent shot on stage, that theyre right that real guns arent used but neither are water guns from Kmart. Because that is totally the point, that to develop a character or plot properly sometimes it is just needed and fake tricks just dont cut it
I have yet to read the actual text of the law, but I presume it's only banning things actually producing smoke. Either not lighting the cigarette or else using one of the new electronic cigarettes would give you at least part of the effect, while you might not see the smoke coming out of their mouth you can still understand what they are trying to convey. If it's illegal then it's illegal, if there's a legal way around it then there's at least something that can be done. The comments about guns might be closer than intended, they might be one of the few items to appear on stage that's even more regulated than cigarettes.
I think that this debate with smoking in theaters is a strange one. People have a good point that actors should not smoke on stage. Actors should be able to smoke onstage if they are using an electronic cigarette so that they are not actually smoking. The electronic cigarettes are a lot healthier for everyone involved and they have a similar look. Smoking onstage is an important part of plays, and creating the right feeling in the show and establishing characters. The government should allow the fake cigarettes to be smoked onstage.
I don't understand the logic behind banning herbal cigarettes onstage. The lawmakers of Colorado clearly do not understand that something that may seem negligible to them can be very important to story-telling. The risks of exposure to herbal cigarettes is less than exposure to real cigarettes, and all the other options are either too expensive or obviously fake. Productions that use herbal cigarettes should just be required to place signs in the lobby warning audience members (the way they do with strobe lights and haze).
Topics like this are always tough. Although I can see the validity in them not allowing them to smoke indoors, when it comes to theatre, people should not have their voice impaired like this. I think that they should make it very clear to the audience that there will be live smoking onstage. I've been to a performance where I was not informed that there would be live smoking onstage. Since I was sitting in the front the smoke was right in my face which got pretty distracting to the performance. If they just inform people, I think that people will be smart enough to decide whether or not they want to go.
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