To smoke, or not? In Minn., that is the question

[WestVirginiaRebel]

AP:

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- During a key scene in the play "Venus in Fur" the lead actress lights up a Marlboro from her purse and takes a drag, tilting her head backward while exhaling a long stream of smoke.

Vanda smokes for only about a minute before dropping the cigarette into her coffee mug, but it's a pivotal moment that begins the character's transformation into an assertive woman. And some theater employees say it wouldn't feel nearly as raw if the actress couldn't smoke an actual cigarette on stage.

"If you're going to be authentic to that aspect of a play, it's essential," said Bain Boehlke, artistic director at The Jungle Theater in Minneapolis, where "Venus in Fur" currently is playing. "Just the smell of the cigarette smoke is part of the world of the play."

Those moments of authenticity could become harder to pull off in Minnesota if lawmakers amend the state's smoking ban to eliminate an exemption for theatrical productions. Now that alternatives exist, a state senator says there's no reason actors should subject the audience to tobacco fumes or glorify smoking on stage, and she has introduced a bill that would ban the practice.

"It's so much easier to use e-cigarettes or to use something else that doesn't have all the carcinogens in it," said Barb Goodwin, a Columbia Heights Democrat.

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Has the stage become the last refuge of the smoker?

[Valin]

AP:

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- During a key scene in the play "Venus in Fur" the lead actress lights up a Marlboro from her purse and takes a drag, tilting her head backward while exhaling a long stream of smoke.

Vanda smokes for only about a minute before dropping the cigarette into her coffee mug, but it's a pivotal moment that begins the character's transformation into an assertive woman. And some theater employees say it wouldn't feel nearly as raw if the actress couldn't smoke an actual cigarette on stage.

"If you're going to be authentic to that aspect of a play, it's essential," said Bain Boehlke, artistic director at The Jungle Theater in Minneapolis, where "Venus in Fur" currently is playing. "Just the smell of the cigarette smoke is part of the world of the play."

Those moments of authenticity could become harder to pull off in Minnesota if lawmakers amend the state's smoking ban to eliminate an exemption for theatrical productions. Now that alternatives exist, a state senator says there's no reason actors should subject the audience to tobacco fumes or glorify smoking on stage, and she has introduced a bill that would ban the practice.

"It's so much easier to use e-cigarettes or to use something else that doesn't have all the carcinogens in it," said Barb Goodwin, a Columbia Heights Democrat.

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Has the stage become the last refuge of the smoker?

 

 

Pretty much.