A few days ago, a judge of the Court of Quebec issued a judgment which says that the act of smoking a cigarette on stage is not a gesture of artistic expression and cannot be protected by the Canadian and Quebec charters. rights and freedoms.
So I laughed. I laughed so as not to cry.
I laughed because this simplistic and unenlightened judgment absolutely does not take into account the uses of the profession that I exercise. Because he is ignorant of our realities and totally defies the notion of freedom of expression.
Let me explain. Far from me the idea of defending the right to smoke in a public place. This is not my point. But this judgment which claims to know what is or is not a gesture of artistic expression denies centuries of literature. If we follow his reasoning: no more Sganarelle’s monologue in the Don Juan by Molière. Monologue which extols the joys of tobacco and often accompanied by a good puff of pipe. Finished the beautiful scene of seduction between Blanche Dubois and a young man in A tram named Désir by Tennessee Williams. This scene which uses cigarettes as a binder for a sexual connection. Without the cigarette, no scene.
Gone is the magnificent “My kingdom for a cigarette” launched by Hosanna, in Michel Tremblay’s masterpiece.
No more representations of Sergi Belbel’s pretty play After the rain, which features nasty smokers on the roof of a building because they are not allowed to smoke inside.
Gone are several magnificent scenes of O’Neill, Albee, Tchekhov, Dubé, because a judge has not read them or does not know what my job is.
When a theater signs a contract with, for example, the rights holders of Tennessee Williams ‘work, it is clearly stipulated that Williams’ text cannot be cut or changed in order to respect the integrity of the artwork.
Here I am, well trapped. As a director, I cannot cut the famous cigarette scene without betraying my contract. But I cannot stage this moment without risking a chase that seems well lost in advance. So what do I do, Judge? You who say that this is not a gesture of artistic expression. Perhaps you should have done your homework in order to understand the situation in which you put producers, directors, performers.
So, I laugh… I laugh so as not to scream.
When we know that a child of 5 years normally developed intellectually understands very well the notion of “pretending”. He pretends to be a superhero, or a princess, or a bandit.
He knows very well that this is not true, that he is playing, that he is pretending, and all the friends of his age who surround him and who play with him understand this convention very well. It seems that some adults, even a certain judge in Quebec, do not understand this simple concept, which has existed since the Stone Age.
It would be worrying if this judge, or another, equally ill-informed, had to adjudicate a complaint concerning a representation of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf ?, of the great Edward Albee. All the characters in this tragedy are bad examples for our fellow citizens. They drink like holes. Whiskey (apple juice), vodka (water). They smoke like chimneys (fake cigarettes) then they have the audacity, well soaked, to take their (imaginary) cars, to take the (imaginary) road where they may be able to kill (imaginary) pedestrians. Can we let such a message get through?
We no longer accept cigarettes. But alcohol, heroin, suicide, murder, abortion on stage? Are these actions more acceptable?
Princes kiss princesses without their consent, poor parents abandon their children in the forest, unable to feed them, witches poison young girls, and wolves eat grandmothers and children. All this is in very bad taste and is surely not an example for our youth. But there is, between us, this tacit agreement which means that we play the game and that we know very well that we are pretending. It has been around for centuries. We present on stage characters who commit reprehensible acts. The Greeks even gave a name to this phenomenon: catharsis. Which provokes fear and pity in the viewer and makes them think about their own choices. To his own destiny.
With this judgment, the law opens a very dangerous breach.
It is not justice that speaks through this judgment. It’s the moral. And morality has no place in art. Neither in the theater, nor in the cinema, nor in literature. It is morality that has led to the excesses of the DPCP, which has filed charges of production of child pornography against the author Yvan Godbout. His book Hansel and Gretel featured a scene of sexual assault on a child. He was not condoning or promoting it. He was describing her to serve his purpose. It’s called art.
It is this breach open to absurd complaints from well-meaning citizens, this breach which opens the door to simplistic judgments, this breach therefore which has nothing to do with the law or criminality, but which prides itself on the moral terrifies. It is with this kind of logic that the Duplessis government prohibited Children of paradise, from Carné, in Quebec, during this period of our history which we call precisely “the Great Darkness”.
This judgment has nothing to do with The harm of tobacco (title of a magnificent monologue by Anton Tchekhov), but with a narrow morality with pernicious effects that must be fought head-on and immediately. Justice must not become a dictator of morals. And morality should never interfere in art. Otherwise, it’s dictatorship.
It’s Duplessis. It’s Poland and the clergy. This is all that we rejected as a people in the 1970s. There is in this judgment a return of good-thinking, of petty-bourgeois morality, of the single thought that makes me shudder.
So I laugh… so as not to be afraid.