“STOP SMOKING,” the man screamed as the show started and Nappo used an artificial cigarette. Others also “lit” up.
I only heard the first and second outbursts.
According to cast members I interviewed for a story later, the outraged man never let up and became a distraction they hoped would go up in smoke.
The scene was far less than classy.
By now, it is commonly known that cigarettes and other tobacco products are dangerous.
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control says more than 1,200 people die daily as a result of smoking. That’s about 443,000 a year.
I personally know how addictive tobacco use can be.
A dear aunt smoked herself to an early grave, inhaling Newport cigarette after Newport cigarette despite years of illness traced back to those very cigarettes.
Other family members live with the impact of smoking addiction.
Back in 2006, the Human Race Theatre found itself under fire, by some who thought it was gratuitous that an actor smoked a cigarette in the play “Moonlight & Magnolias.”
In that case, it was a herbal cigarette.
In the case of the Million Dollar Quartet actor, it was what has been described as an industry-approved theatrical tobacco-less product.
The jerktastic man had a fit over a fake cigarette used in a room of mostly adults.
The use of tobacco products on stage is forbidden in Ohio.
Following voters approval in November 2006, the state became the first in the Midwestern to enact an indoor smoking ban.
Here's the thing, people — fictional or based on reality — smoke now as they did in the then.
Whitewashing the past — and for that matter, the present — does nothing but leave us color blind.
It would be akin to a stage play about war without the gun props or a movie about racism with nothing but harmony.
Million Dollar Quartet is about the night in 1956 when Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley jammed together for the first and last time at Phillips’ Sun Records.
As Victoria Theatre Association spokeswoman Diane Schoeffler-Warren, pointed out, everyone smoked like a chimney back then.
As depicted in the show, they also drank and danced the hootchie-koo, but "el rudo" apparently wasn't offended by that.
Just the smoking.
It should not surprise anyone that smoking is a part of America’s past.
One famous smoking ad campaign from 1940s and 50s declared "More Doctors Smoke Camels than any other Cigarette."
"Your dentist" recommended Viceroys and Santa liked Pall Mall because it guarded against throat scratch.
Back in 1930, a whopping 20,679 physicians said Lucky Strikes were “less irritating,” according to one ad.
Smoking was part of the American story.
To pretend that people didn’t and don’t light up is lying about who we are and who we were.
Swearing, smoking and drinking are part of Million Dollar Quartet because they were part of the time and are part of the culture.
Contact this columnist at arobinson@DaytonDailyNews.com or Twitter.com/DDNSmartMouth
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