It was brought to my attention (pretty recently) that theatre folk usually refer to Macbeth as “The Scottish Play”. Why?
It’s almost like it’s the kiss of death for an actor to actually say “Macbeth”. I realize that actors and other theatre related people have their superstitions, but come on!
Because some of the supsersticions are founded!
Macbeth is a damn creepy play in and of itself, wroght with supersticioun (the Weird sisters). Lots of odd things have happened on set for it, on many different occasions, and it is now known as the cursed play. Safer just to call it the Scottish play.
It’s actually only bad luck to say “Macbeth” in a theatre.
Whistling in the theatre is also bad luck.
Why? I have no idea.
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Traaaadiiiiiishuuuuuun! ;j
I thought that it was only bad luck to say its name when you were doing a production of it. Supposedly, it would doom the production to failure.
If by “Why?” you are asking what the superstition is, the story that I heard was this:
Allegedly, the three witch characters were based upon folks Shakespeare knew, or observed. When they heard about the play, they realized what The Bard had done, and cursed the play. I don’t know, maybe he refused to give them the movie rights or something.
After that was told, with many more embellishments that my mind has, thankfully, discarded, many cases were produced about theaters burning down, actors literally dying on stage, as well as specific instructions on the ritual to perform if, by some tragic mistake, you say “Macbeth” in a theater.
Though, when you compare it to other folks’ superstitions, it’s not that far a stretch. Some descendants of Eastern-European Jews don’t let their boys’ hair get cut until their second birthday — the Evil Eye, apparently, doesn’t want to waste time killing off baby girls, just baby boys.
And professional atheletes, they’re even worse. Some baseball player, whose name I’m currently forgetting, before every home game, would eat the same fried-chicken dinner, in the same restaurant, in the same seat, wearing the same clothes. Michael Jordan would wear his Alma Mater’s undershorts for every game. And, hey, look how much it helped him.
Oh, and if you’re reading this in a playhouse, take a fiber of thread from a curtain or some other fixture in there, and walk outside. Out there, turn around three times, clockwise, saying, “I renounce thee.” on each turn, and then throw the fiber over your left shoulder. You’ll thank me for it.
Back in the days when stagehands used whistle codes to coordinate raising and lowering the scenery, a careless whistle on stage could result in a swiftly descending sandbag to the top of the head. I think most actors considered that very unlucky.
I & another guy almost got killed stage crewing for Macbeth at school - at the very least, we would have had 2 broken arms each…
Most of the set was flimsy, single use stuff. Except for the rostra as these need walking on (large blocks to create different levels) & a huge flat painted black, being used to provide some extra back stage space…it was constructed out of a 2*2 frame, hardwood ply & was attached to the stage by a pair of wooden braces screwed into the flat & the back of the stage (unlike the duct tape used for everything else…). At one point, Eddy & I had to lie behind a rostra & hold up a huge pine branch into a spot for the vision/warning burnham wood to dunsinane bit. To do that, our heads had to be slightly higher than the rostra & our arms considerably higher to hold it high enough to be seen (we were still invisible because of the rostra & the angle). During the dress rehearsal, I looked round for no reason, to see the flat descending silently & fast towards us. So I dropped the branch, grabbed Eddy’s head & slammed it into the floor (not hard, just fast) & ducked. The end of the flat whacked down really hard on the rostra where our heads & arms had been a second ago…no way that flat should have moved!
On a lighter note - the doctor in the sleepwalking scene said “I have known many that have walked in their beds, yet died holily in their sleep” on the last night. I just collapsed (silently of course). Everyone stared at me & so I explained, so they all collapsed. He came off stage & just saw us rooling around in total silence & pointing at him! Poor lad!
It’s also the only play that we didn’t play any practical jokes on the cast…
As someone with a degree in acting (and who has done MacB twice), I can confirm the superstition, and that Punoqllads has the “official” explanation more or less correct. Supposedly, Shakespeare borrowed some of the witchy incantations from “real” sources, and the play has been cursed ever since.
Also interesting is the reason why Shakespeare supposedly used actual witchcraft in the play: because he wrote it for King James (who succeeded Elizabeth in 1603 or thereabouts). James had a deep and abiding interest in witches; among the many books of philosophy and political theory he wrote was a treatise on witchcraft. Shakespeare, being the canny sort, was as willing to engage in brown-nosing and crowd-pleasing as many lesser lights, so knowing about James’s interest, he cheerfully threw a bunch of witch stuff into MacB. A little off-topic, maybe, but interesting as background.
More to the point of the OP, there are lots of stories about deaths and injuries in productions of MacB, including an alleged onstage beheading in an American production. Nothing untoward happened in the plays I did, and I have to say there are lots of stories about onstage calamities in theatre generally; we just remember the MacB ones more strongly. (Same as the “full-moon” phenomenon.) For example, my swordfighting instructor told of a Hamlet where Laertes accidentally jammed his foil up Hamlet’s nose, lodging it into the top of his sinus cavity, and then, unable to stop himself from finishing the flourish in the split-second he was realizing what had happened, snapped off the blade a couple of inches down from the nostril.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it…
All I know is there’s a damn fine Blackadder episode on the subject, in series III.
Actually, I believe that it’s the third birthday, not the second. The ceremonial haircut is called an Upsherin (Yiddish).
It is a Hassidic custom whose origin I don’t know - your suggestion sounds good, though!
;j
Yowch!
I continually violate the “taboo” about saying Macbeth in the theatre (but I have powerful juju). Usually it’s considered okay to say it if one is in the production.
The witches’ spells were not from associates of Shakespeare’s–they were more like folk versions of the spells, and I think some of them may have been included in King James’ book on demonology; also, some of the scenes (with Hecate) are believed to be interpolations by Thomas Middleton.
Another explanation is that Macbeth has always been popular. Theatres that were struggling would sometimes perform it to bring in a crowd. But their efforts were often “too little, too late” and the thatre would close. Well GOSH! that play must be bad luck.
Bad things can happen in any play. Once you start to notice it, things pop up with more attention drawn to themselves.
P. S. I’m performing it right now–anyone who calls it “the Scottish play” gets asked if they mean “Brigadoon” instead.
And the #1 Way to Tell Your Play is Cursed…
- There’s an alleged onstage beheading!
Cervaise, I’d love to hear the details if you know them. I bet someone had a few harsh words for the Props Master.
Bucky, I like your style - but just to be on the safe side, please don’t say “MacBeth” while standing under a ladder and opening an umbrella. Especially if someone’s whistling “Brigadoon” in the background!
Sadly, I don’t remember the book in which I saw the story. It was a collection of theatrical mishaps, all presented as fact, but y’know you can’t believe everything you read, so to be safe I added the word “alleged.”
It might have been this book, but there’s not a lot of information, so I can’t be sure…
If I remember my junior year English correctly, the play “Macbeth” has always been surrounded with an “aura of evil” (to use my teacher’s words). To start with, it deals with total evil, from witches to assassinations. From its first production, several mishaps have occured in the production of the play. Many of the actors have been taken ill or died in mysterious ways while working on it. The worst story had to be the gentleman in the audience who, during intermission, flung himself out of his bacony seat to the stage, dieing on impact.
Punoqllads, I believe you are refering to Wade Boggs. He always ate chicken everyday for lunch, but due to his baseball schedule I doubt it was at the same restuarant. Boggs had many odd habits including never stepping on the baseline during warm-ups and always starting warm-ups at 7:17 whenever he could.
How could I forget? Aseymayo, there’s not one, but two beheadings. One is alluded to in dialogue. The other happens offstage, afterwards the character brings the head on stage and sticks it on a spike. There’s also a talking disembodied head, a bloody baby, and a suicide.
Thanks, but um, drayton? I do believe Cervaise was talking about an actual accidental beheading onstage during a production of the play. Unless your director is a real stickler for realism, this is almost never supposed to happen.
Is the all clog dancing version of MacBeth known as the Schottische play?
Having read King James’ Daemonologie several times, I can assure you they’re not. James doesn’t give the text of any spells. He does say that the fastest and most effective way to summon demons is to curse God, which was standard theological thought at the time.
The witch scenes in Macbeth bear about as much relationship to actual witchcraft (as Shakespeare’s contemporaries understood it) as the opening scene of Annie does to conditions in a real orphan asylum. In other words, WS gives his audience lots o’ song, dance, and windowdressing with relatively little social realism.
A few plays from this period do offer a more “realistic” treatment of witchcraft, most notably Rowley, Dekker and Ford’s The Witch of Edmonton. Rowley and Co. drew upon a popular pamphlet about the real-life trial of Elizabeth Sawyer. Mother Sawyer becomes a witch almost by accident; she curses, and a demon appears in the form of a talking dog. Later, she learns to invoke the dog with the phrase “Santibicitur nomen tuum,” which is a (deliberately?) corrupted version of a line from the Lord’s Prayer. Contemporary accounts of witch trials usually cite similar mock-Latin formulae – not cutesy rhymes about eye of newt. (Incidentally, the stage Sawyer is a surprisingly sympathetic character, a lonely old outcast who embraces the devil because he offers her the only taste of companionship she’s had in years. The play is well worth a read if you’re interested in the social aspects of witchcraft in Shakespeare’s time.)