Representatives from three theaters in Quebec City said Wednesday that a recent court ruling confirming the fines they received for allowing actors to smoke on stage will reduce creative options and remove some of the magic from live performances.
The theaters had contested the $ 500 fines, claiming the penalties constituted a violation of their freedom of expression.
But the act of smoking is not itself a form of expression, Quebec court judge Yannick Couture wrote in his decision published Tuesday. The problem, he said, was not whether the actors could play characters who smoke; rather, it was about how the actors portrayed smoking on stage.
Quebec law allows actors to portray characters who smoke or to simulate smoking, “which constitutes expressive content that is not prohibited,” Couture wrote. “The prohibition is the projection or inhalation of smoke from a tobacco product in a public place.”
Smoking during a theatrical performance “is not expressive content, because no message is transmitted,” he added.
The Quebec Tobacco Control Act stipulates that any product “that is put into the mouth to inhale any substance that may or may not contain nicotine” is prohibited in “closed spaces where sports or recreational, judicial, cultural or artistic activities take place” . or in any closed space where the public is admitted.
Louis-Philippe Lampron, a lawyer who helped represent theaters, said Wednesday that context should be taken into account when applying the smoking ban. Lampron, who is also a professor of human rights at Laval University, said that normally in cases involving constituted rights, the judge first considers whether a right is being violated and then decides whether that violation is justified.
What people are reading
In this case, the judge ruled that smoking was not a form of expression, although smoking on stage is the result of a decision by the writer, director or others working on the play, Lampron said.
“I am really surprised by the decision and I think it sets a dangerous precedent for artistic creators involved in all kinds of living arts,” he said in an interview.
Anne-Marie Olivier, artistic director of the Théâtre du Trident, one of the three fined theaters, said the smoking scene in her theater production revealed how one character, an opera singer who had decided to stop singing, was sabotaging herself to herself.
The Quebec court ratifies the fines to the theaters where the actors smoked during the performances. # Smoke tobacco
“When an artist decides to smoke on stage as a character, it is to say something specific to the viewer,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “For me it has a specific meaning, so it is not true that it has no meaning or is not expressive.
“When we say to artists, ‘You can’t portray something realistically,’ that’s censorship.”
Couture wrote in his decision that theaters could find other ways to depict smoking, including the use of special effects. He noted that they regularly find ways to show other illegal activities on stage, such as murder and drug use.
In all three cases, the actors were smoking cigarettes containing the herb sage, not tobacco, when the fine was issued.
“It’s the only tobacco-free alternative we have,” Olivier said. “If we had something else where we could create the hyper-realistic effect where you can inhale and exhale something, we would definitely use it.”
Marc Gourdeau, general and artistic director of the Premier Acte theater, who was also fined, said that smoking can help characterize a character, an era or a feeling. Wearing less realistic accessories would “break the magic” and draw people out of the moment, he said.
When the Premier Acte theater was fined in 2018, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health said that allowing smoking of anything in a place where it is prohibited violates the law.
Michel Nadeau, artistic director of the Théâtre La Bordée, the other theater to be fined, said representatives from the three theaters would meet Wednesday to decide what steps they would take next, adding that they had not decided whether to appeal.
This Canadian Press report was first published on November 10, 2021.
This story was produced with financial assistance from Facebook and the Canadian Press News Fellowship.
Reference-www.nationalobserver.com