Smoking a cigarette on a theater stage is indeed an offense under the Tobacco Control Act. The court decision fell on Tuesday, when the Court of Quebec dismissed three Quebec theaters fined for allowing an actor to smoke.
The community now fears that this prohibition will extend to cinema, television and other performing arts.
“In the room we were presenting [en 2017], there was an opera singer who was not doing well. She ended up sabotaging herself to the point of smoking cigarettes, ”relates the artistic director of the Trident theater, Anne-Marie Olivier. The scenographers had underweighted the importance of smoke in the scene and concluded that to represent this act of self-sabotage, “it was that and nothing else.”
However, this staging had probably displeased spectators. Following complaints and checks from the Ministry of Health, a fine of $ 682 was handed over to the establishment for “tolerating a person smoking in a place where it is prohibited to do so”.
Two other Quebec theaters, Premier Acte and La Bordée, received similar fines shortly after.
Before the courts
The three theaters have therefore decided to jointly challenge these contraventions in court, seeing them as an infringement of their artistic freedom. After pleadings in May, the trial ended on Tuesday.
” Since [fumer] has no expressive content, that is to say it does not aim to convey a message or a meaning ”, this“ activity ”is not protected by the Quebec and Canadian charters, ruled Judge Yannick Couture in his five-page judgment. In other words, there are other ways to “deliver the soul of a theatrical performance” than to smoke a cigarette and therefore, this ban does not interfere with freedom of expression.
This judgment stuns the artistic directors, who see no other means of bringing realistic works to life than to use authentic accessories.
In a play where one tries to make believe in a plausible scenario, the arrival of a plastic cigarette “breaks the magic”, explains Marc Gourdeau, general manager of Premier Acte. “We have to make everything look as real as possible. “
The limits of the limit
“A play where we were to represent René Lévesque, that would have posed a problem,” he illustrates. “A piece that represents a mafia scene from the 1930s, in the back of a bar, it would not go without a cigarette. “
Representatives of the fined theaters fear that this smoking ban will extend to film and television sets, or other performing arts shows like dance.
Already, a reluctance has set in among the directors. Michel Nadeau, the artistic director of the theater La Bordée, notes that when the didascalie of a play commands the act of smoking, “we think twice about it”.
Same caution at Premier Acte: “we asked the troops not to light a cigarette on stage, but in doing so, we are restricting their freedom of representation,” says Marc Gourdeau.
It is appropriate that the smoke “annoys people”, but suggests that a warning “to be done before purchasing the ticket” prevents unpleasant surprises among more sensitive spectators.
“We don’t want to break the laws. We just want to have that freedom to reproduce life realistically, ”adds Anne-Marie Olivier.
One of the lawyers representing the theaters, Mr.e Louis-Philippe Lampron, notes that the judgment is “all the more difficult to understand in light of the Ward judgment against Gabriel. It was last week that the Supreme Court recalled the importance of freedom of artistic expression, which is at the heart of the values structuring freedom of expression. “
Members of this common front will meet on Wednesday to decide whether to appeal the judgment.