In the article about the origin of the phrase “break a leg”, I feel that not enough of the possible origins were addressed. I have always been told, and feel that it is the most sensible that I have yet heard, that the origin is from what follows:
The part from which the main curtain hung was called a leg. To ‘break a leg’ was to have the curtain raised and lowered so many times as to break it, and of course the curtain would be abused as such if you had such a particularly impressive performance that the audience prolonged the curtain call by continuously applauding and thus calling you back onto stage (in between which the curtain was raised and lowered many times).
This is incorrect. The main curtain is not hung from legs; rather, legs are the side curtains used to mask the offstage area from the audience, while still allowing actors to enter & exit the stage.
Cute explanation, but not even close to factually accurate.
And why Ken didn’t mention it, he knew it was not factually accurate. However, it was (and still is) wide-spread, so maybe if he feels like revising the old Staff Report, he’ll stick on a de-bunking of this one.
Well, yes it could. Or not. Without the discovery of an intermediate form, or plain testimony by a German-English actor (perhaps, given the date, a Jewish German-English actor?) to a descent, we cannot know.
Note that “Hals und Beinbruch” translates into the noun phrase “fracture of the neck and leg”, which is fairly distant from the imperative sentence “Break a leg!”.
One thing I can add of my own knowledge is that “Break a leg!” was well known in Madison High School (Madison, NJ), which is not in any way a performing-arts school, by early 1963.
Good points, John. I’ll try to give an even better update tonight after work.
After I posted my 1940 find, I found an even better one in 1925, in a book of fiction. So, the phrase was in use in English in 1925. While that source wasn’t discussing the theater(I don’t think) it was specifically referring to using “I hope you break a leg” as what you were supposed to wish someone when you really meant to wish them ‘good luck.’
Douglas Wilson found some earlier possibly relevant uses of the German, also using Google Books.
Although this concept it does not date back far enough for the phrase, the side curtain being called a leg goes along the same lines as the main curtain being called a leg. The actor(s)/actress(es) would have to enter and exit the stage via the wings and thus through the ‘legs’, moving them so much as to break them.
Also, I looked on and off for about an hour for a thread on this topic before posting this one, and I couldn’t find it (which means I probably overlooked it by accident). Thanks for providing the link!
I think what John W. Kennedy is trying to suggest is that side curtains on stages are not like main curtains, perpendicular to the direction of travel. Rather, they are parallel to the direction of travel, serving as a series of louvres like venetian blinds. There is not much need to move them out of the way, as they don’t particularly obstruct the path of actors entering and exiting the stage.
Excellently described! As I was having a hard time coming up with such a contrite but accurate description, I found this stage diagram instead.
See the short wavy lines on either side of the diagram (5 of them on each side) in the upper portion of the drawing? Those are stage legs. No need to move them, as they mask sight lines without inhibiting actors’ ability to enter/exit the stage.
Aslo wikipedia has a fun article about the phrase, altho they merely offer possibilities for the origin with no endorsement for any of them as being more likely than any other.
Nitpick: the legs do not have a “direction of travel” at all, since they do not travel. (Except straight up, if they are raised.) Legs usually end in grommets with ties tied directly to the long pipe (“batten”) that runs the length of the stage, and can be raised and lowered (“flown out or in”) as needed. If they travel (i.e. can be extended across the stage to meet in the middle), then they are not called legs, they are called torms.
To the OP, when I was but a wee theater tot, I heard the same explanation for the phrase. I have since come to understand that it is a folk etymology, albeit a fun one. If you think about it, it doesn’t make sense: the original grand drapes (big curtain in front) were not raised/lowered, nor were they travelled in/out. They were swagged in and out. If something were to break from overuse, it would be the swag line. (“Break a swag!”) Additionally, the “long pipe holding the curtain” has been called a “batten” since the earliest days of stagecraft. The word, like many, many backstage items, derives from sailing terminology.
Legs are also made of super-heavy tightly woven fabric about a eighth of an inch thick, so unless you’re wearing a costume decorated with naked razors, you’re not likely to do them any harm.
No, not clumsy wording: drunken misreading on my part. Carry on.
I thought of another fun theater etymology story. There’s a popular actors’ superstition that one should never whistle onstage unless in a scene. The story is that in the “olden days,” all of the scene rigging was handled by former sailors, who were familiar with the systems from furling and unfurling sails. At sea, they coordinated their efforts by whistling, to be heard over the sea and general noise of the ship. They brought this communication method from ship rigging to backstage rigging, so an actor idly whistling on stage risked a sandbag falling on his head.
Totally fanciful, I’m sure, but a fun one to tell.
Quite apart from the lack of supporting evidence, doesn’t the curtain explanation just smell false? - like the brass monkeys thing, or any number of backronym-based false etymologies (like P.O.S.H. or S.H.I.T.) - it stands out as false because it is too clear. Real-life etymologies often just don’t make a lot of sense - this one is too plausible to be true.
