ROME (Reuters) - A stunned Italian actor had to stub out the cigarette he had lit up on stage after a spectator complained, forcing the theater to change the script of an Arthur Miller play to make it smoke-free.

"This had never happened to me in more than 300 performances," the actor, Sebastiano Lo Monaco, was quoted as saying by the Web site of Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

Italy has banned lighting up in all enclosed public places since January this year.

Lo Monaco was smoking, in line with the script, while playing the main character Sunday in Miller's "A View from the Bridge" at a theater in the northeastern city of Mestre, when a woman from the audience shouted "Put out that cigarette."

After a 15-minute suspension, the performance resumed with a modified script and a non-smoking protagonist.
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Way to fuck up everything, assholes.

yeah way to ruin art

But she was well liked by the audience! Wait, wrong play.

that's horrible. that woman should be dragged out into the street and shot like a dog...or the actor should have ignored her like a professional.

There's an indoor smoking ban though, guys!

how often are dogs shot, really?

it's not that they're shot often, but when they are, it's invariably in the street.

I shot a couple this morning. They're great when you're broke and need food, and what's a stir-fry without meat?

ol' yeller died more like a deer

Aren't there products you can buy these days that look and light up like cigarettes that can be used for things like this? You know, they aren't really cigarettes, but they give the same effect when doing performances or movies or something.

Shoot down all complainers with extreme prejudice.

No

Smokin'
Shootin' Dogs

All we need is a little vandalism of road signs and you've got a redneck teenager's Saturday night. Toss a beer or two in, as well.

Yeah, I'm sure it just totally ruined the entire performance, because the character was entirely based on the concept of "smoking." What a bunch of crap. They have props for everything else, why not prop cigarettes?

I think I have to say it . . . WHOFA KING CARES.

Yeah, I mean as long as there's one way of expressing your point, we should be able to ban all the rest. You know, like we do with speech.

I saw Ubu Roi at the Met about 10 years ago. They didn't crap on the stage. Way to ruin art.

lalz

Anti-smokers, which was the point.

Of which I am one, and I'm saying, who cares if they had to take lit cigarettes out of the performance. It doesn't change the performance or the character one bit. Why shouldn't actors be chompin' at the bit to get another chance to show off their mastery of the art and act like they're smoking?

I applaud.

the point is not that the cigarettes were essential to the character but that the actor was forced, in the performance, to capitulate to the demands of a noisy audience member. had she addressed this after the preformance it's likely that no one would have ever heard the story. she rudely gave her right to be offended precedence over her fellow audience-member's right to watch the play, and for that she should be punnished by death.

"Who cares!?!?!!?!" is an easy retarded argument. Who cares that someone 50 feet away from them was smoking? You do? Well fuck off then.

Testify brother.