Re: “No ifs, ands or butts,” Jan. 4 editorial.
Verisimilitude: the appearance or semblance of truth; the quality of appearing to be true or real.
For hundreds of years, verisimilitude has been a guiding principle in the production of live theater. Unfortunately, as shown by the Denver Post editorial concerning our unsuccessful efforts to seek an exemption from the ban on indoor smoking for live theatrical performances, there are fundamental misconceptions about verisimilitude in theater today.
Yes, we don’t fire real guns with live ammunition, but we also don’t use plastic squirt guns, either. Instead, we use stage firearms that make a loud noise that sounds very much like a gunshot, emit smoke, and recoil upon firing. We also don’t use real swords during swordplay onstage. But, again, we don’t use plastic swords from a toy store, either; you can actually hear metal against metal when they clash onstage.
Finally, we don’t want to use real tobacco onstage; we told the Colorado Supreme Court we have and would use dried tea leaves to simulate burning tobacco. We only want something that won’t spill talcum powder all over your shirt so audience members laugh when they shouldn’t. We just want verisimilitude, or “the quality of appearing real or true.”
If theater professionals and laughing audience members alike can attest that talcum, exhale-only fake cigarettes don’t pass the test of verisimilitude, it is flippant and uninformed for The Post to respond that “it is acting, after all.” Many classic and contemporary new plays require a realistic portrayal of smoking. Unfortunately, theater-goers in Colorado who want to experience verisimilitude — and a play presented as intended by the playwright — can no longer do so.
Your editorial acknowledges smoke is smoke. Likewise, the absence of real smoke is the absence of real smoke. That absence is obvious in a theatrical production, particularly when everyone on a stage is instructed by the playwright to talk about it as if it were there.
We take seriously the well-being of our audience. We warned in advance and made reasonable accommodations if smoking on stage was to occur. But that is not enough under the ban.
Theater in Colorado will be poorer for the court’s regrettable decision not to protect free expression, and The Post’s superficial analysis of that issue.
Chip Walton is artistic director of Denver’s Curious Theatre Company (chip@curioustheatre.org) and Michael Stricker is co-founder of Denver’s Paragon Theatre (mstricker@paragontheatre.org).
