Friday, January 08, 2010
Smoking on stage: why theatre needs to kick the habit
guardian.co.uk: "What should theatre's New Year resolution be? Ought it, as Lyn Gardner demands, shed the excess weight, develop a new skill set and get more involved in the community? Or should it aim to increase enjoyment of life and time spent with the family, as John Barrowman might prefer? If the choice were mine, I'd pick that old-fashioned gem: quitting smoking."
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2 comments:
While the article makes a strong argument about how much better smoking works in movies then it does in theater, it still acts as a necessary prop. While cigarettes have become the mark of the artist, lower class, and unfortunately addicted in the modern world, they were at one point incredibly important social pieces. Certain time periods just don't have the same flair and feel without smoking that they do with.
We were just discussing this very fact in props class. While the health concerns seem a little ridiculous. The banning has become a problem for all the reasons the author states. Many of the plays we do were written before smoking had the status it does now. When the playwright is using the cigarette to say something about a character it is hard to dismiss the cigarette but more often than not we have to do to restrictions. Save from inventing some sort of self smoking realistic fake cigarette (which we mentally tried to in props) we are going to learn how to show all these character traits in new and creative ways.
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