CAMELOT Theatrical Special Effects

While today's playwrights tend to eschew smoking as a character trait, there still remain thousands of period pieces in which "He lights a cigarette" appears as a stage direction. Directors can skate around this in many instances: when I directed Mister Roberts I had Doc delay his approach to the captain's cabin by unwrapping a stick of gum and offering some to the crew instead of lighting a cigarette. It was an easily reworked bit of business. Some plays, however, such as the one I'm in now, Frederick Knott's Wait Until Dark, were written with cigarettes as integral devices to the plot. The heroine is blind and relies on her other senses, such as smell. A burning cigarette is a key plot point and also serves as a device to introduce matches into the action so that fire becomes a threat in the last act. Of the six characters, three are required to smoke. Natch, those three actors are all non-smokers or reformed smokers! Not only that but the theatre is located in a college building which is marked as "Smoke-Free." What to do?

There are several solutions from the simple to the technically complex. Our director dodged the issue with a few packs of Bravo Cigarettes. Bravo is a nicotine-free cigarette made from lettuce leaves that looks like a cigarette, burns like a cigarette, tastes like sour owl shit and gives absolutely no satisfaction whatsoever. The director was happy that he could post signs in the lobby that there was no danger of second-hand smoke during the performance because, well, the only thing you get from smoking lettuce is a sudden craving for tomatoes, croutons and dressing.

If actual smoke and fire are not critical to the plot, there are many other solutions. There is a "gag" cigarette available at party stores that consists of a cardboard tube filled with talcum powder and a red-foil tip. The actor blows into the cigarette instead of puffs (which looks unnatural) and a puff of powder comes out the end. I do not recommend these; they look as fake as they are and leave a mess on costumes.

A reasonable facsimile can be built using a triple-A (AAA) battery and a small electrolytic capacitor in parallel with a 1/8 watt resistor and coupled to an LED covered with ash, all wrapped in a paper tube with a microswitch at the filter end. This device will actually brighten slowly when the switch is depressed then dim gradually, giving the impression of an actual cigarette. It still looks fake because there is no smoke coming from the actor's mouth but if the actor is in motion it works quite well. If the actor is sitting, thinking (let's imagine Sherlock Holmes's cavendish pipe) then a plastic capillary tube connected to a mini-fogger could be the answer.

Now that lighting up is out, we need creative ways to work this gag.

posted by C. J. # 10:23 PM