ROME (Reuters) - A stunned Italian actor had to stub out the cigarette he had lit up on stage after a spectator complained, forcing the theater to change the script of an Arthur Miller play to make it smoke-free.

"This had never happened to me in more than 300 performances," the actor, Sebastiano Lo Monaco, was quoted as saying by the Web site of Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

Italy has banned lighting up in all enclosed public places since January this year.

Lo Monaco was smoking, in line with the script, while playing the main character Sunday in Miller's "A View from the Bridge" at a theater in the northeastern city of Mestre, when a woman from the audience shouted "Put out that cigarette."

After a 15-minute suspension, the performance resumed with a modified script and a non-smoking protagonist.