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Smoking a pipe on stage


Pushlik

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Hi. I'm involved with a production of Journey's End in a venue that has no air filter or extraction facilities. Smoking a real pipe, unfortunately is completely out! Throughout the script there are references to the character (Osborne) filling his pipe, lighting his pipe, puffing on his pipe etc. I have looked at vape pipes but not only are they quite expensive but they don't look like a traditional pipe and certainly don't look period. Has anyone had a similar problem that they have managed to find a solution for?

 

Thanks

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There's a useful page on the SMA site herewhich takes you through the legalities of smoking on stage. You MAY find that your actor can do it properly (assuming they were happy to do so).

 

HOWEVER, in any situation that calls for a smoker in the script I personally would always stop and ask the question does it HAVE to be lit at all...?

Audiences can be forgiving, especially where something as emotive as smoking is concerned. I myself was in a play back in the early 80s (well before the ban) and the character had to smoke his last cigarette as that was the machinery for getting him out of the house to go buy more - I'm NOT a smoker but had been prepared to try faux smoking to make it look realistic, but I couldn't cope even with non-inhalation. So we used artistic license and rewrote a few lines to show me taking the last fag from the packet that was in fact broken so unsmokable.

 

Not saying you can do that here, but may be some license to have the character USING the pipe but not actually lighting it. I've known pipe smokers over the years suck on their unlit pipes as a sort of comforter - one even used to call it his 'dummy'...

 

 

 

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Artistically textured e-pipe or a standard pen type vaping device built into a simple fake pipe bowl?

 

In the early days of vaping you could get a rubber pipe bowl that simply pushed onto the end of a typical ego vaping pen to give the look and feel of a pipe.

 

If you use unflavoured zero-nicotine eliquid (usually just 50% glycerin and 50% propylene glycol) then it can be vaped without any real biting sensation that the nicotine loaded liquids give.

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As an ex pipe smoker I can tell you it's out most of the time anyway. Pipe smoking is all about the equipment - racks, reamers, cleaners, tobacco pouches, box of swan, - all sorts of business can be built around this without ever lighting the thing and it will still look right. It really is just a baby's dummy for adults treat it as such. Just get the pipe right. There are plenty of books.But you do need to take instruction on how to handle the thing from someone who knows or it will just look wrong...
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If your actor really does smoke a pipe then the performance of "pipe smoking" will be in their manual skill set, if he doesn't then he'll have to learn. From friend pipe smokers the performance is so much more than the smoking of tobacco. Having the pipe to play with, unlit, is easily a big part of being a pipe smoker which should be quite sufficient for your actor to convince his adoring audience.
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