Bizarre, Free Speech, International

Quebec Theater Fined In For Actor Lighting Fake Cigarette On Stage

One could imagine a number of things that might draw the attention, if not the ire, of aspiring censors in Quebec in the performance of Conversations avec mon pénis, starting with the woman dressed as a giant penis.  However, the $500 fine levied against the theater was for Marc-André Thibault sitting next to the giant penis while he smoked a fake cigarette on stage.

The Premier Acte theatre in Quebec City is challenging the fine on the basis of its “freedom of creation.”  Officials say that there is no artistic license when it comes to smoking in a public place.  That is a curious interpretations for two reasons.

First, the theater is a public space but the stage itself could be easily distinguished as not being open to the public.  Second, it was not tobacco but sage that was smoked. That makes it equivalent of burning incense on stage.  Yet, according to Quebec’s Tobacco Control Act, “any product that does not contain tobacco and is intended to be smoked is considered to be tobacco.”

Does that mean that the actress is also treated as actual male genitalia? If so, there is also a law against exposing oneself in public.

61 thoughts on “Quebec Theater Fined In For Actor Lighting Fake Cigarette On Stage”

  1. C’est pas pantoute croyab la vie sous un regime socialiste!!! Mais tout de meme, vive le Quebec lib!!! Et vive Pierre Falardeau!!!

  4. Cigarettes are the dumbest thi ngon Earth which the dumbest people use. Opioids are worse, heroin is worse. But that is about it. Guns are quicker. If you want to commit suicde then get it done. Do not put your family through all of the medial apCray and “your fight against cancer”. .

    1. Ya, cigs, get you some, but if you want Cancer fast just keep taking the Gov’t /big Pharma’s VACCINES!!!

      Hulk? Heard of him?

      Del Bigtree?

      Oky1?

      Ya, big pharma & the govt is killing your grandkids with vaccine.

      And hell of it is they tell you to your Face in the Insert from the vaccines in the Small Print but most Americans seem to Stupid To Read! LOL:)

      So get another Flu Shot Morons. 🙂

      When will you people Grow the Phk Up & realize your in a war zone here in the US, under Attack & it ain’t German 88s like they use in the last WW2 war to kill you with?

  5. If they say it was a marijuana cigarette, I’m sure the charges will be dropped promptly!

  6. Did the giant penis have an orange pompadour? If so, then the performance could be considered political speech.

    1. I think just about everybody is familiar with the theory about “penis envy”; I just wonder what Freud would have a say about a woman dressed up an a giant penis.
      I think he would have had a field day with that scenario.

      1. Tom Nash – I am sure that Freud would have said that sometimes a woman with a penis is just a woman with a penis. 😉

          1. loup – I still haven’t figured that out. Was the director cross-casting so he/she put a girl in the penis? Or was a particular statement being made by the playwright? Or did the costume only fit the girl? Or?

            And why is he smoking sage by a grown penis?

  7. You have to wonder who actually enforced this law. Was it a real law enforcement officer or some department of health apparatchik who knows nothing about exercising discretion?

    Stupid stuff

  8. Here in Hollywood, only herbal cigarettes can be smoked on set. They are supposedly non-toxic. But actors hate the smell and taste! Almost everyone would prefer real cigarettes. That’s why I find this story puzzling. It sounds like the actor was smoking a herbal cigarette. It seems like the production should have determined what is legal before the show opened. But the production and theatre might be low-budget operations where no one took the time to make a proper inquiry.

    1. t seems like the production should have determined what is legal before the show opened.

      It went right over Peter’s head that the law is stupid.

      1. Tabby, Equity productions would know proper codes. But the law is not as dumb as one might think. Low budget theatres might be cluttered with junk backstage making them virtual fire traps. There’s a theatre complex in L.A., for instance, in a building that’s about 100 years old. And backstage it’s all raw timber. I’m amazed that place hasn’t burned down yet.

        1. Peter Hill – fire codes came about because of fires in theatres and cinemas.

              1. Screw Youtube up the backside, it won’t be soon enough for me to see those Commie/Fascist American Hatin Trash hit the BK Courts!!

                THe URL was Great White, Not Gun’s N Roses Utube Azzholes!

            2. 1903 – over 600 died when an arc light ignited muslin curtains. The fire doors were locked and ushers refused to open them.

        2. Peter Shill, he’s on stage. That aside, people smoked cigarettes in public places as a matter of course up until the fresh air fascists took over the world about 30 years ago. It’s quite difficult to set a building on fire with a discarded cigarette.

          1. DSS – it is remarkably easy to start a fire with a discarded cigarette. I speak from experience. Today’s theatres are set for fire on the stage and all the actors and crew know what to do if something occurs. However, I was in a production where the set was set on fire by a lit candle. Nobody on stage noticed it. Finally an audience member jumped on stage and put on the fire. 🙂

            1. DSS – it is remarkably easy to start a fire with a discarded cigarette. I speak from experience.

              No, you’re speaking of an experience with candles, which did not burn the building down.

              People still smoke at home, Paul. A typical metropolitan region has one or two fatal house fires in a year. You have electrical issues, gas, portable heaters, arson. Not many are caused by cigarettes. Peter Shill is defending absurd warning-labels-on-every-french-fry regulations to contain a threat that almost never comes to pass.

              1. DSS – Cigarette fires cause close to 1,000 deaths and 3,000 injuries each year in the united states, according to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). As the ignition source in fires responsible for over 20% of all fire deaths , cigarettes are the nations largest single cause of such deaths.

    2. Peter Hill – it is not low budget if the government shows up to check out the giant penis. 😉

        1. Karen S – I don’t think there is an official position. I think they hold a lottery and the winners get to inspect the girls or the penises. Whichever. 😉

          1. Paul – at an antiques auction, I couldn’t resist getting a collection of Brothel Inspector badges. It was a real job in Western towns, apparently. I’ll have to dig them out to read the info on the back again.

            1. Karen S.,
              It’s still a real job in much of Nevada.
              Prostitution is legal in many of the counties, and and the brothels are regulated ( and taxed) by the state.
              Years ago, a friend decided to fly his Cessna from Washington State to Phoenix.
              Weather forced him to lay over in Winnemucca, Nevada for a few days, less than halfway to his destination.
              ( I have nothing against Winnemucca, but it’s not exactly the Garden Spot of Nevada).
              He was going stir crazy being stuck there; I told him I’d send him a “what to do in Winnemucca” guidebook.
              I subsequently bought a book entitled “Guide to Nevada Cathouses”, or something like that.
              It included those institutions in Winnemucca.
              I considered mailing it to him as a joke, but if his wife opened the mail, I was unsure if the joke would be appreciated.
              So I chickened out and didn’t mail it to him.

            2. Karen S – I wonder how much you had to pay to get the position of Brothel Inspector?

      2. PC Schulte,..
        Without knowing anything about the play, could the theme have been a critique of Canadians who behave like dicks?
        Given your experience in the theater, do you think that’s what the production might have been going for?

        1. Tom Nash – both the Greeks and Romans did plays with actors running around with huge phallus. And the gods only know there are some odd and quirky plays out there.

          I am more concerned about dick shrinkage due to sage smoking on stage.

          1. PC Schulte,…
            Without knowing anything about the play, it looks like they may be associating the sage smoking with a ridiculous degree of enhancement.
            That play may, in fact, be a marketing tool for one of those commercials, touting sage as one of those miraculous “enhancement products”.

  9. What if you smoked water vapor?
    What if you smoked water air?

    Something has to give, where imagination trumps reality.

    1. Gee,..
      Years ago, they had candy sticks that looked exactly like a cigarette.
      I suppose if they used those onstage, that would bring the inspectors and regulators down on them as well.

  10. Canadians must be a very fragile, childlike people if they require their government to protect them from upsetting images like smoking. Clearly, they felt they were not responsible or wise enough to make their own choices, and therefore required to pay their money to their All Father government to rule their private interactions.

    1. This would have gone over better if the government had claimed that smoking sage was cultural appropriation.

  12. Canada has remained more British than it has assimilated being American in nature and culture. It’s to be expected there. I doubt they could host another Olympics for fear of 90% of the visitors being arrested and fined for something or another.

    The USA started out on the right foot with it’s first of it’s kind Constitution but has gone overboard in the direction of the Canadians and Brits BUT in different way If you are one particular political persuasion you can be speech Gestapo while pissing on Christ in a jar or provide public money for real live sex acts that’s right funded by tax dollars If you are of any other belief system especially The Constitution you will be damned by illiterates and castigated by the culture Nazis.

    Canada is even handed in their ridiculous street theater. The USA? Depends on who is goofing off at the helm of the ship of state. and who makes up those who oversee the overseers.

    One finds it hard not to laugh at the Brits or the Canucks but there is a part that always wonders what the British and the Canadians consider lives must be like acting as the ball on the end of a piece of rubber being pounded in whatever different direction with no sense of direction like as not.

    I’m for theatre not of macabre but of ridiculous until I see Benita and Bloody Chuck pick up the paddle ball and try to imitate ‘government.’ Such as this latest tirade against the media for not focusing on policy enough.

    Nancy heal thyself you can’t have it both ways. Sneering at our Constitutional efforts from the left side of your mouth while bitching about your high taxes out the other side. And only an audience of two or three applauding – one of them Canadian to get back on track.

    They make look silly to Americans but they are even handed and original in a creative sense not given to distorting the work of others instead of thinking about ways to find solutions.
    .
    One of which is buying a new mirror with true reflection capabilities That’s you Dorian is laughing at.

    1. The same a**holes taking things to the extreme are found in the US. A**holes know no political boundaries. They come in various flavours: armed to the teeth a**holes, no more Sushi nights a**holes, can’t show a nipple but can show a head exploding a**holes, distracting from the problems at home by constantly finding fault with other countries a**holes, etc. Your jumping on the finger pointing bandwagon denigrates all that once made America great. Stop and think for a while and choose your poison. America has the more corrupt political system, an oligarchy. America has a Supreme Court that supports the arming of everyone regardless of the absence of ‘well designed regulations’, Supreme Court that supports the oligarchical nature of government. In America if you have enough money to suspend justice, you can become President. Turley and his lapdogs on this blog constantly divert attention towards the minor extremes of social correctness in Great Britain, Canada, France, and other countries to take the focus off of the perverse interpretations of the Constitution and the lack of real freedoms such as the freedom from exploitation vis a vis basic rights like health care. The US at 24th place in the world remains the only advanced nation that treats the health of its citizens as a charge as much as the market will bear commodity system. All the other 23 better systems consider the health of their citizens as a public right. These other countries where freedoms are threatened have the same freedom of bringing it to the public. Canada, Great Britain, France, etc are no less free than the US. One might stop and reflect upon the seriousness of the issues, however. And, I’m not leaving. I am staying here with the majority of Americans who feel as I do. The problem is in an oligarchy, the majority does not rule, the rich and those that are duped, do.

        2. There is no shortage of material on the Canadian oligarchy.
          When two families control 40% of the country’s wealth, as in Canada, I suppose the word “oligarchy” can’t be far behind.
          Just as when there is a comment by Isaac, the odds are high that the word “oligarchy” will be worked into the comment.
          I have speculated that Isaac felt he had perfected all things in Canada, then sent out as a missionary to do the same for the U.S.
          But given all the evidence to the contrary, is it more likely that he gave up on remaking Canada into his vision of Utopia, then fled the Canadian oligarchy for the freedom of the U.S.?

          1. Two families??? ROTFLMAO!!! I think Poor Old Isaac means well, but he is kind of like Bernie Sanders- – – somebody who hasn’t had a new thought in 50 years and ain’t about to start now!

            How else does one remain a socialist for so many years, in the face of the USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, and all the other socialist failures??? STUPIDITY! Gross frigging stupidity.
            ——
            First, as much as the authors insist that previous examples of socialism were not “really” socialist, none of them can tell us what exactly they would do differently. Rather than providing at least a rough outline of how “their” version of socialism would work in practice, the authors escape into abstraction, and talk about lofty aspirations rather than tangible institutional characteristics.

            “Charting new destinations for humanity” and “democratising the economy” are nice buzzphrases, but what does this mean, in practice? How would “the people” manage “their” economy jointly? Would we all gather in Hyde Park, and debate how many toothbrushes and how many screwdrivers we should produce? How would we decide who gets what? How would we decide who does what? What if it turns out that we don’t actually agree on very much?

            These are not some trivial technical details that we can just leave until after the revolution. These are the most basic, fundamental questions that a proponent of any economic system has to be able to answer. Almost three decades have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall – enough time, one should think, for “modern” socialists to come up with some ideas for a different kind of socialism. Yet here we are. After all those years, they have still not moved beyond the buzzword stage.

            https://capx.co/you-cant-argue-against-socialisms-100-per-cent-record-of-failure/
            —-
            There’s more at the link, such as:

            “Socialists usually react with genuine irritation when a political opponent mentions an earlier, failed socialist project. They cannot see this is anything other than a straw man, and a cheap shot. As a result, they refuse to address the question why those attempts have turned out the way they did. According to contemporary socialists, previous socialist leaders simply did not really try, and that is all there is to know.

            Ultimately, the contemporary argument for socialism boils down to: “next time will be different, because we say so.”

            After more than two dozen failed attempts, that is just not good enough.”
            ——
            So, that is Isaac. And Bernie. Still popping off those wonderful ideas he had back when he was 20, and in college somewhere. And not learning a durn thing since.

            Squeeky Fromm
            Girl Reporter

      2. Isaac — We’d prefer that you use the term ‘peoplekind’ instead of ‘a**holes’ when talking about Americans. It’s more inclusive. 😉

        1. T Bob,..
          – There are some long-overdue revisions that need to be made to the plaque on the State of Liberty.
          I propose this modification:

          We’ll take in some of your tired, your poor, your wretched refuse who enter legally.
          But keep your chronic complainers who, once here, bitch and moan and whine non-stop about the U.S.

        2. TBob

          I use the term a**holes because they exist in every country. Peoplekind represents all, not just that minority of a**holes in the US and Canada that exhibit their stupidity as illustrated in Turley’s article. My point is that for a minority of Americans, unfortunately a large one, this exposing of left and right extremism in other countries serves to avoid the elephant in our own room, an elephant of perversity that far outweighs these tidbits Turley tosses the hopefully ever reducing masses on this blog. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

  14. Quebec was once a serious place. Too bad. Anglophone Canada should expel them from the Dominion.

    1. And around – wasn’t there a vote a while back to either kick them out or them secede?

      1. There have been two secession votes in Quebec. Not advocating Quebec voluntarily secede. I’m advocating forcible expulsion by a fed-up Anglo majority.

        1. DSS – so this would be an “we are tired of your sorry a$$” so get out and get a real job vote?

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