In loo of a theater, play staged in N.Y. restrooms

More a "fun post" but Shakespeare did say that "The whole world is a stage". On a more serious level I read the legal papers by the MN DOH. From what I can glean the vague terms for smoking by actors in so-called "legitimate theater". was an attempt to accommodate concerns that these theaters would have. Precisely, they claim that many plays are sold in a "season ticket package" and that the theaters might know in advance of the annual "program" what the specific details of the play will be.

I will again give my personal example where I quit smoking before Minnesota's original clean air act. For the first six months any exposure to smoke would trigger "nicotine fits" which could be prolonged and severe. Fortunately, my work-study employer the U of MN was able to provide a smoke free work enviorment in the Walter Library thesis "stacks". I do support the original "MN clean air act".

I attended a quite a few lectures and as I recall a few plays on the U of Campus. I got the student/resident employee discounts for the plays and I couldn't go to a bar or drink for that first six months. Since lectures and plays are free or cheap entertainment during this self-imposed "bar ban" I attended quite a few. There was never any thought of smoking at the events. I would hold my breath when walking by smokers at the entrance but that was just a few seconds. My experience is ancendotal but I've found that one of the strongest factor for an otherwise healthy person to successfully quit is there exposure to second-hand smoke. (This is why it drives me crazy when I see those "nicotine patch" commercials where the patch wearer go over to talk to current smokers who have lit up.

As for bars, I consciously avoided them for that first six months. In my case alcohol at home tended to trigger the "nicotine fits" so I was "on the wagon" for that six months. Again my case is "ancendotal" but it contradicts some of the "patch" commercials I've seen.

Getting back to the "legitimate theater"s claims that they sell season ticket I would say "so what?" There are arguments I've seen on the web that playwrights "demand" that things like real cigarettes be used supposedly for the "integrity" of the "art".

A local "legitimate theater" has several options. The first is to try to negotiate with the playwrights representatives for a smoking substitution. Quite frankly, there a lot more playwrights and plays than there are "legitimate theater" stage for them. With other states banning "onstage smoking" (In Colorado, the first legal challenge the courts have, so far, upheld the full theater ban.) This further strengthens the negotiating position of local "legitimate theaters". Novels and play scripts are often altered for stage, screen or as musicals. I will give "Pygmalion" as an example. While the British movie was close to the book the musical and movie "My Fair Lady" were greatly altered.

The "season ticket" was another point I recall. Two months ago I was unaware of the "theater" exemption in the so called "Freedom to Breath Act". It would be rare to find everyday people who were aware of it. (Apparently not even the Jungle Theater because they didn't comply with the requirements when they had smoking onstage.). From my observations over 90% of Minnesota adults are now aware of the "smoking theater" exemption due to the extensive publicity the "bar smoking theater" has received.

Some people do want to avoid exposure to second-hand smoke and want to have non-smoking entertainment for their children. Smoking is a factor in TV and movie ratings. http://www.fcc.gov/parents/

I see a lot of people taking children into the Guthrie when I drive by there (I-35W detour). Around 75% of Minnesota adults don't smoke. With the Guthrie clientele apparently more "upscale" than VFW's and blue collar bars. (again, from my detour observations they sure look more upscale.) the Guthrie patrons should have a far lower smoking rate.

It would seem that this would provide a great opportunities for so called "legitimate theaters" to have "smoke free" season ticket packages. It would seem like a good marketing ploy and I wish them success. I've heard that the new Guthrie has something like half a dozen stages. I so that could give plenty of opportunities for non smoking season packages.

On the other side a dilemma is created for the theater patron who buys tickets to plays where the actors smoke. To "time machine" my pre-1973 situation to today , let's say I wanted to see a play at the Jungle Theater (I would have been interested in the "Orson Welles" one man show). I had just quit smoking and had the smoke sensitive girlfriend. I had paid $40 to $50 for a pair of tickets and perhaps made reservations with their post play restaurant partners. Let's say there is smoking on stage and this triggers asthmatic symptoms in the girlfriend and nicotine craving in me. Even if we got a refund the restaurant reservations would be for after the play. Even if this was changed or cancelled it would still make for an unpleasant experience. If I was in pre-1973 situation today I would have had a strong awareness of second-hand smoke avoidance. If the Jungle Theater website, which gives substantial information on plays had a "smoking alert" I could avoid that play. Conversely, I would deduce that the plays without the "smoking alert" were non-smoking.

The Minnesota Twins will customise a ticket "bundle" around your schedule, no reason so called "legitimate theaters" can't also do that. The so called "legitimate theaters" can get (dare we say!) "creative" and work with other so called "legitimate theaters" for "reciprocal arrangements". It's called marketing and adapting to technology.

Six months after I quit second hand smoke didn't bother me. That said, I fell I I have achieved substantial health benefits by not smoking since the early 1970's.

(Someone could have fun writing something like "The Medical Marijuana Monologues". The basic plot would be that theater smoking is banned so the actors get prescriptions for medical marijuana to smoke during their theater performance. Much as in the movie "Fargo" where the "Scandinavian accent" got "thicker and thicker". In our play the actors act increasingly like stoned potheads as the play progresses. It should be perfectly suited to amateur actors)

Enough of my "red rant" for now. Here is the link and the "bathroom theater" story. Greg Lang

http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/onstage/16715161.html?page=1&c=y


In loo of a theater, play staged in N.Y. restroom
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON, New York Times
March 15, 2008
"Ladies and Gents," a noir-ish thriller from Ireland with a cast of six, will open on Monday for a two-week engagement in the public bathrooms near the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. Yes, that is right. The play is being put on in the bathrooms, the audience standing in a line along the stalls. Go ahead, make the clever scatological joke. Come up with some headlines for bad reviews.

Got that out of the way?

Karl Shiels is the leader of the Dublin theater troupe Semper Fi, a company that has a penchant for site-specific theater. One night in 2002 at a Dublin bar, Shiels asked the playwright Paul Walker to come up with something.

"He said, 'Would you write a play for me?'" Walker recalled. "I said, 'Yeah, OK' And he said, 'To be put on in a public toilet.'"

The result was "Ladies and Gents," a nasty little tale about prostitutes, politicians and other morally questionable types in 1950s Dublin. (And, yes, the action is actually set in a couple of public bathrooms; that's not just a mean trick.) It consists of two acts, one that takes place in the ladies' room, and the other in, well, the other room.

The audience splits upon arrival, each half seeing a different act first, and after a brief intermission the halves of the audience switch bathrooms. In the play's chronology the acts are taking place simultaneously, and each act answers questions raised in its counterpart.

"Yes, it's a gimmick," said Walker, who has made a career writing for theater and television. "The gimmick gets the newspapers. But it only gets you five minutes with the audience."
The play was first performed in the bathrooms on St. Stephen's Green, a large public park, as part of the Dublin Theater Festival. The play was later part of the Edinburgh Fringe, where it won the Fringe First Award, and went on a mini-tour of England, playing to sold-out bathrooms in Brighton and Nottingham.

All of this was much talked about in Dublin's small theater world. Laoisa Sexton, an Irish actress who was splitting her time between Dublin and New York and knew Shiels, thought the play should come to America. So did Georgeanne Aldrich Heller, a producer who often works with the Irish Arts Center.

Scoping out locations

Sexton told Heller she would find some public bathrooms in New York and get the needed permission from the Parks Department. Heller just laughed.

"It takes someone who is naive and new to the country to tell me they're going to get the parks," Heller, who once worked in the Manhattan borough president's office, said. "I know what you have to go through."

The Irish Arts Council paid for Shiels to go to New York on a bathroom-searching expedition with Sexton.

The ones in Bryant Park were beautiful but too small; the ones in Washington Square Park were a little too dingy. The bathrooms on the far west end of Christopher Street were perfect, but, she said, a Hudson River Park official told her that putting on a play in them would constitute "inappropriate use" of a public toilet.

But, oh, those sublime loos at the Bethesda Fountain. Large, windowless, old-fashioned, rather spooky. Love at first sight, Sexton said. Now, for that permission from the Parks Department.
Maneuvering red tape

After several months the project reached the desk of Rory McAvoy, an official in the parks' special events and marketing department who just happens to have an Irish background. You might imagine that a request to perform in the Central Park bathrooms would be among the stranger he has heard.

"This definitely didn't take the cake," McAvoy said, mentioning specifically the frequent applications for world-record attempts on city land, including a request that somehow involved the world's largest ice pop.

And that was, on his advice, what the production needed to prove. So after eliciting testimonial letters from the lord mayor of Dublin and the Irish consulate cultural attaché in New York, and after reading that pleading letter to the mayor, Adrian Benepe, the parks commissioner, gave the project the go-ahead and even found a way to reduce the rental costs.

Putting on the play, currently in rehearsals at the Irish Arts Center, still proves a logistical challenge. There is a long list of park rules that the production has to abide by. Generators need to be rented, as well as portable toilets (Audience members are not, of course, allowed to use the facilities as they were intended). But the show is going on.

"New York City's parks have always hosted great theater -- from the venerable Shakespeare in the Park to more avant-garde productions," Benepe said in a statement. "But 'Ladies and Gents' will give new meaning to our quest" -- OK, Benepe, just this once -- "to provide outlets for creative expression."
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