In Curious Theatre’s upcoming world premiere staging of “tempOdyssey,” it’s not the presence of cigarette smoke that makes an artistic point.
“It is the absence of smoke,” said director Chip Walton.
Playwright Dan Dietz introduces a character who explains to the audience exactly when and why he decided to take up smoking. “Smoking is a central part of his identity, and how he sees himself,” said Dietz. “But later, that character finds himself physically unable to smoke – and the fact of that triggers a pretty big revelation for him.”
So smoking is a central device in this play. Problem is, smoking of any kind inside a public theater, even a nontobacco substance, is now prohibited by Colorado’s new statewide smoking ban.
“But if that character is unable to actually smoke in the first half of the play, then the significance of that moment – that absence of smoke – in the second half is completely lost,” Dietz said. “The only way the device works is if you’ve seen smoke previously.”
“TempOdyssey” has become the flash point of the theater community’s fight against the smoking ban as it pertains to live performances.
The law doesn’t offer an exemption for artistic freedom of expression. So in the absence of specific language to the contrary, the Colorado Department of Public Health has advised law-enforcement agencies that all indoor smoking must be considered illegal – at least until a judge has his say.
That’s just what happens Monday, when arguments will be heard in Denver District Court in a lawsuit brought by the Curious, Paragon and Theatre 13 companies against the department of public health. The theater groups contend the smoking ban illegally curtails their right to free expression.
“The First Amendment covers the right to artistic expression,” Walton said, “so when a playwright has produced a text in which that expression includes smoking as a central plot point or character trait, then we are both ethically and legally obligated to faithfully execute that playwright’s vision.”
Walton cites several states, including New York, that exempt live performances, “so there certainly is precedent,” he said.
No fines have yet been issued against any Colorado theater company, even though troupes all over the metro area have routinely depicted onstage smoking, using nontobacco products, in defiance of the ban that went into effect in July.
But Curious chose to argue its point in court now, in advance of Saturday’s opening of “tempOdyssey,” rather than risk a $200 fine.
“It seems there ought to be an acceptable way to have a performer smoke on stage,” said Dietz. “In this play, smoking isn’t just atmosphere. It isn’t just something that characters do to lend a certain flavor to the proceedings. It’s important to character development.”
“TempOdyssey” is a dark comedy about a young woman from Appalachia who moves to Seattle and turns out to be the perfect temp worker in every way.
“She’s efficient, she’s intelligent, she’s dedicated,” Dietz said. “She’s trying to remain a safely anonymous temp. The only problem is, she thinks she’s the goddess of death.”
Unfortunately on the first day of her first job, she winds up being placed at a bomb-manufacturing company. There she meets our smoker, a co-worker and self-proclaimed “king of the temps.” Things spin out of control from there.
When people hear “tempOddysey” is about temp workers, some assume it might be a light situational comedy like the cult classic film “Office Space.” Those people don’t know Dietz.
“I want the play to draw people in with a certain amount of light, off-beat comedy, if possible, and then begin to draw them into darker and darker territory as the play goes along,” Dietz said.
He set out to write a play about the ways in which we mythologize our own lives and tell stories to ourselves about who we are and the lives that we lead, and the dangers of taking that too far.
“I think that is a real temptation, especially in the American culture, but I also see evidence in other cultures that we tend to self-mythologize,” Dietz said, “to the point where you no longer have the ability to relate to other people from one human being to another human being because things have been blown completely out of proportion, and even the smallest conflict gets raised into a giant, larger-than-life struggle that gets played out on a cosmic scale.”
In a world as small as ours has grown to be, Dietz sees a real danger in allowing that sort of dehumanization of interaction with one another.
“I wanted to explore what happens when you get so used to telling stories about yourself that you forget that you are just a human being, what kind of dangers do you get sucked into at that point. What kind of things are you capable of when that happens?”
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
“tempOdyssey”
DRAMA | Curious Theatre Company | Written by Dan Dietz | Directed by Chip Walton | Starring Dee Covington, Jason Henning, Verl J. Hite, Rhonda Brown and Michael McNeill | Acoma Center, 1080 Acoma St. | THROUGH DEC. 16 | 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays | $28-$32 (2-for-1 Thursdays) | 303-623-0524 or curioustheatre.org
