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November 14, 2005
What in blazes?
I'm all for an indoor smoking ban, but I think this particular reaction is too heavyhanded for my taste:
ROME (Reuters) - A stunned Italian actor had to stub out the cigarette he had lit up on stage after a spectator complained, forcing the theater to change the script of an Arthur Miller play to make it smoke-free.
"This had never happened to me in more than 300 performances," the actor, Sebastiano Lo Monaco, was quoted as saying by the Web site of Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
Italy has banned lighting up in all enclosed public places since January this year.
Lo Monaco was smoking, in line with the script, while playing the main character Sunday in Miller's "A View from the Bridge" at a theater in the northeastern city of Mestre, when a woman from the audience shouted "Put out that cigarette."
After a 15-minute suspension, the performance resumed with a modified script and a non-smoking protagonist.
This reminds me of the time I went to see The Libertines play an in-store at the Tower Records on Clark St. In what seemed like a typically punk rock move, they showed up an hour late and stumbled through five or six songs. Right at the start of the set, the guitarist lit up a cigarette and puffed on it throughout the appearance, even though you're not supposed to be smoking inside.
Nobody told him to put it. It's part of the experience!
Posted by oz115 at November 14, 2005 12:50 PM