Obviously, you CAN, and SHOULD, simply to fuck with theater folk who look for any excuse for poor performance, accidents, or any other misfortune nobody cares about.You might even make them cry; a double-bonus.
It is a common superstition that the play itself is cursed, because Shakespeare used real spells from witches who, not too happy with their portrayal, cursed the play. I believe it went like this:
“Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn, and cauldron bubble. Death to Theater Majors.”
Doing so has supposedly led to a number of accidents, deaths, hangnails, and even the Astor Place Riot in 1849.
Actors go so far as to refer to the play as “The Scottish Play”, and “The Bard’s Play”. If some unfortunate soul dare say the name, he or she must perform a ‘cleansing ritual’, which could include:
- Leaving the theater building, spitting, cursing and spinning around three times, before begging to be allowed back inside.
- Reciting a line from a another Shakespearean play (the ‘Merchant of Venice’ is a ‘lucky one’).
- Getting a real job.
Sources :
Macbeth, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth#Superstition_and_.22the_Scottish_play.22
Top Ten Theatre Superstitions: http://listverse.com/2010/08/20/top-10-theater-superstitions/
Astor Place Riot, Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astor_Place_Riot
18 comments
Chris says:
Mar 22, 2011
I could have told you the answer to this one.
Charlie says:
Mar 25, 2011
Did an actor steal your lolli when you were little?
jarrettgreen says:
Mar 25, 2011
It was the summer of ’88. I was minding my own business having a lolli. I’m not sure what a lolli is, but I presume you can have one. So there I was, lollying, when out of nowhere, an actor came out of the bushes. Not just any actor, but a method actor. He was to be playing a ground squirrel in a modern adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank and had spent the afternoon alternately sitting on his hind legs and running in front of cars. He looked me dead in the eye, and swiftly removed my lolli from my person. Now he was the one with the lolli and he seemed to enjoy/and or not enjoy it. That is why I hate them.
ac says:
Mar 26, 2011
method actors are the squirlliest of the bunch.
ConcernedCitizen says:
Mar 30, 2011
Though it may seem frivolous and down right petty to you, we “theatre folk”, who you so demurely encourage your readers to “fuck with” can tell you it’s about a little more than witches spells. True, many of the spells in Macbeth are from an actual book Shakespeare stole from a witches covent in England.The witches weren’t unhappy about the portrayal, they were pissed he broke in and stole the book. And yes, there are several well documented occurrences of freak accidents, untimely deaths, and over all bizarre goings on that were (and still sometimes are) associated with the production. All this a side, the Macbeth superstition as well as many other theatrical superstitions have become a tradition in the theatre that people, regardless if they believe or not, respect. It’s about respect for the production and respect for the art. Personally, I’m not a superstitious person, however I prefer to let sleeping dogs lie.
And by the by, I’m a theatre director and there hasn’t been one single day of my life I’ve felt my job wasn’t “real” or relevant. And to answer your question, lots of people care. Not just about the history of the theatre, but about its power to transform and communicate by being one of the last, live representations of the human condition.However, these people are usually cultured, educated, and understand theatrical history a little better than some who probably conducted an ill conceived google search. If you’re going to post something you obviously have little understanding about, at least embellish a little. Or even better, be clever.
As Macbeth says:
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
Regards
jarrettgreen says:
Mar 30, 2011
Sorry you took this seriously. The entire question was posed because one of my close friends was premiering in a local community play. We were incredibly proud of him, and happily paid money to see it. I’m a graphic designer, I’m bred to love the arts – all of them. Please try and not take yourself so seriously. I promise I won’t
jarrettgreen says:
Mar 30, 2011
I must also say, before he went on, backstage I patted him on the back and told him ‘Good Luck, Macbeth!’. He still lives to this day, and did wonderfully!
Joe Clay says:
Apr 15, 2011
I’m sorry but I have to say it: I find it absolutely hilarious that a theatre director misspelled aside as two words since one of it’s meanings is strictly a theatre term. That said, I enjoy the theatre. Carry on.
Joe Clay says:
Apr 15, 2011
I should also add that I only had to say that because you tried to subtly deride Jarrett for being uncultured or uneducated. If you’re going to call someone on something, you can’t make an ironic mistake while doing so. Now you guys can carry on.
Corey says:
Mar 30, 2011
Getting back on topic, there is another reason the “M” word became taboo, and if true would be much easier for our modern day business sense to understand. Back in “the day” Macbeth was a very popular play, similar to the Godfather if you will, and loads of people who knew nothing about your rinkydink theater would flock to see it done. So in that light when a theater company was about to go under (as it were) they would put on a production of MacB to raise ticket sales. So to say Macbeth in a theater while working on another show was like jinxing your current run with back luck. Intoning your fears as it were. It also doesn’t help that there were several freak accidents that closed other theaters down during a run of MacB. And obviously the fires and whatnot is what made that the final show in those circumstances.
mewing says:
Mar 30, 2011
i work as a theater technician at a small university. recently, we had a student jokingly say the name after a rehearsal one night. the next morning, when we came in, the lighting on our large stage was going ballistic, flickering and flashing all over the place. not to mention there was a water line break near the building that caused them to have to shut off the water for most of the day.
the water came back on eventually and i found the problem with the lighting (dmx splitter failing and causing bad signal to send) but you have to wonder, is it just coincidence or is there something to this?
Mermerizein says:
Mar 30, 2011
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
kassandra says:
May 12, 2011
yeah, so i guess the people who created your clothes and produced your movies and designed your bridges are all idiots. do the world a favor and think before you speak.
KIm W. says:
Apr 1, 2011
10-year stage manager and literary manager here.
Some of other theater “superstitions” actually do have practical origins — it’s supposed to be bad luck to whistle backstage, wearing green onstage is said to “outrage the fairies”, and it’s also bad luck to close down a theater for the evening without one light — known as “the ghost light” — burning. And while the superstition attributes all these to bad luck, ghosts, and fairies, there are more practical applications:
1. In the days when the backdrops in theaters were changed using a pulley-and-counterweight system, the stagehands used to signal to each other when it was time to drop the counterweight for a given backdrop by whistling. So if someone was indiscriminately whistling backstage, a stagehand could confuse it for his cue, cut loose the sandbag…and send it plummeting down on an unwitting actor’s head.
2. The color green didn’t show up well in the particular type of lights used in early theaters. If you wore green onstage, you’d look…really damn weird. So green was right out for costume colors.
3. As for the ghost light — okay, picture how big your average theater space is, and picture how much random crap is lying around in it. Would YOU want to walk into a totally dark theater and thus run the risk of tripping over seats or stepping off into the orchestra pit or falling over a papier-mache toilet or whatever while you’re looking for the lightswitch?
So — when it comes to “The Scottish Play” (yeah, that’s what we often say when we have to refer to MACBETH in a theater), there may have once been some kind of practical explanation that’s just been buried under tradition. My hunch is that the people in Shakespeare’s time who were involved in the original production just decided it was “cursed” because of a run of run-of-the-mill bad luck (kind of like what SPIDERMAN: TURN OFF THE DARK is facing on Broadway right now), and ever since it’s been self-fulfilling prophecy.
In closing: a friend of mine once did stunt work with a production of MACBETH that had Friday the 13th as an opening day and featured a set design that used shards of what looked like broken mirrors and featured people walking under ladders. And the director hadn’t noticed he’d included these other “bad luck” elements. I went to see the show on opening night, joking that “at this rate, the theater might just actually BLOW UP,” but…nothing happened.
required name says:
Apr 8, 2011
Nothing? My god man! Did they even have the play???
Joe Clay says:
Apr 15, 2011
I was told that ghost lights were there solely to keep people from falling into the orchestra pit. But perhaps that was only the case at the performing arts center where I worked because anyone who had any business there in the dark would be entering from the stage. They always had them right on the edge. I always liked being in the big halls with only the ghost light on. There was a nice ambiance in a 2,600 seat hall.
Howard says:
Jun 20, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h–HR7PWfp0
Mrs.Woods says:
Aug 12, 2011
Ok I believe in this little myth. I remember when I was a kid doing a theatre camp and we were all sittin backstage going “macbeth Macbeth Macbeth!” and five minutes later the fire alarm goes off, and during the show we had a kid fall in the pit andsomeone had to spend two hours standing on a chair holding a broken backdrop.