Smoking written out of Arthur Miller play

[SkinsD]

Granted this is in Italy but I think this is a travesty. First off, how is an actor's smoke on stage going to reach the crowd.

Nevertheless the bigger question is whether free speech would trump smoking ban laws if this incident happened here. It is a part of the play and Miller obviously felt the need to show the character smoking, shouldn't that be respected?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051114/od_nm/italy_smoke_dc;_ylt=AhuVIgcLjq4YCA1FUpXJXXLtiBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

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.

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"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.

[SkinsHokieFan]

I understand what you are saying

But those Italians have a HUGE smoking problem

You leave any public establishment there smelling like a cig

[Kosher Ham]

Could use a fake cigarette on stage. Or not light it at all.