THE CURSE OF MACBETH

Consider this a warning! Don’t say the name of the play Macbeth out loud while inside the theatre! Refer to it as “The Scottish Play” or “The Bard’s Play”, for crying out loud, unless you want terrible things to happen…. The most famous of all theatre superstitions involves the curse of the play Macbeth.
Tradition states that any company producing said play will be struck with terrible luck from strange accidents, injuries and death! Quoting from the play or even mention of the name of the play inside the theatre, including the stage, the house and ESPECIALLY the dressing rooms is just plumb inviting trouble!
One theory says the superstition started in the old days of stock theatre companies, which were constantly struggling to stay in business. Near the end of a theatrical season, a company would realize it wasn’t going to break even, and would announce production of a crowd-pleaser (yes, the Scottish Play - from now on referred to as TSP), hoping to boost ticket sales. Even if the management didn’t abscond with all the money, it was often still too little and too late to save the company, and so would serve as a harbinger of financial doom. Gradually many ills were attributed to the play.
Shakespeare tailored TSP to the supernatural tastes of the new King James, who had written a book on how to detect witches. Another theory has the witches “bubble, bubble” curses being a little TOO authentic, and unleashing some evil forces. Perhaps Shakespeare plagiarized a real black magic curse, and garnered the displeasure of those who did not wish to have their occult knowledge displayed before the world.
The apocryphal story states the play’s bad luck started with its’ first public performance. John Aubrey, who knew some of the actors, reported that the boy that was to play Lady Macbeth was stricken by a sudden fever and died, forcing Billy Shakespeare himself to stand in for that role. Legend has it that after all Shakespeare’s attempts to please King James, the monarch banned TSP for five years.
A 1672 performance in Amsterdam was supposedly accented by the actor playing Macbeth using an actual dagger, and doing the foul deed for reals in front of an unsuspecting audience. A 1703 revival in London was accompanied by one of the most violent storms in England’s history.
Legends abound, but try tying people down to details, and it always turns out to have happened to a friend of a friend of a friend, looking more and more like an urban myth. Actors are already a superstitious and flaky lot, and many make do without sufficient practice swinging heavy swords about on darkened stages, inevitably leading to a legacy of unintentional slice and dice. Lurid tales of near-fatal accidents, ferocious storms and lost friendships no doubt affect already suggestible actors’ minds, and the faithful will always see a conspiracy, especially when they are looking for it. That said, there are several documented cases of extremely curious accidents and other trouble befalling the cast and crew of various productions of “The Scottish Play.” Some are worth a quick review:

-On April 9, 1865, Abraham Lincoln brought a copy with him on board the River Queen riverboat on a trip down the Hudson River, amusing people by reading aloud passages dealing with Duncan’s assassination. Within a week, he was dead from assassin John Wilkes Booth’s hand, who yelled “Sic Temper Tyrannis” (“Thus always to tyrants”) while making his escape.

-On May 10, 1849, more than 10,000 New Yorkers came to the Astor Place Opera House to protest the presence of British actor William Charles Macready in TSP. The protest turned into a riot and the militia shot into the crowd, leaving 23 dead and hundreds injured.

-In the early 1930s, thespian Lillian Boylis had the part of Lady Macbeth, but died the day of dress rehearsal. A portrait of her was hung in the theatre, and when the play was having a revival in the same theatre years later, her picture fell from the wall on opening night.

-In 1937, young Laurence Olivier was practicing TSP in the Old Vic Theatre when a 25-pound stage weight crashed down, barely missing him. As if that weren’t enough, the director and the actress playing Lady MacDuff were injured in a car accident on the way to the theatre, AND the proprietor of the theatre died of a heart attack during the dress rehearsal. During a performance part of Olivier’s sword broke off, hitting an audience member who would soon die of a heart attack. Olivier nearly blinded another actor during a swordfight in a 1955 production.

-In 1942, an especially cursed production of TSP headed by John Gielgud was struck by the deaths of the actors playing Duncan and two of the three witches, and the suicide of the costume and set designer.

-In 1947, an actor named Harold Norman was stabbed in the climactic swordfight and died from his wounds. Damn actors and their realism! His ghost supposedly appears in Oldham’s Coliseum Theatre on Thursdays, the day of his death.

-In 1953, Charlton Heston appeared in an open-air version of TSP in Bermuda. During the scene of the burning of the castle, the wind shifted, blowing smoke and flame into the audience. Heston suffered severe burns in his leg and groin area from tights that had been accidentally soaked in kerosene!

-Rip Torn’s 1970 NYC production was a victim of the actor’s strike; the 1971 version suffered through two fires and seven muggings!

-In 1988, it is said that the Metropolitan Opera version of Verdi’s TSP was cancelled at intermission when someone in the theater leapt from the railings to their death in the orchestra pit. Another ’88 version with Christopher Plummer and Glenda Jackson reportedly went through something like 3 directors, 5 MacDuffs, 6 stage managers, 2 set designers, 2 lighting designers, 6 cast changes, and only 26 reports of injuries and sickness.

This is just the tip of the iceberg! I know our audience isn’t big on concepts like delayed gratification and self-control, but for the safety of the beloved cast and crew, please don’t say the name of the play inside the theatre! Some suitable alternatives are “The Scottish Tragedy”, “The Comedy of Glamis”, “The Scottish Business” or maybe just “That Play.” If you do say the name out loud in a theater, you are expected to follow certain steps to dispel the curse before it can ruin whatever presentations are underway. The most common method is to leave the room, turn around three times, spit on the ground (or over each shoulder), and then knock on the door of the room and ask permission to re-enter it. Other methods include leaving the theatre completely to do the above ritual, and saying the foulest word you can think of before knocking for permission, or to simply let loose with a string of obscenities, or mumbling the phrase, “Thrice around the circle bound, Evil sink into the ground.” Or you may want to quote Hamlet, “ Angels and ministers of grace defend us.” Or just keep your big mouth shut in the first place!

-Mr. Play by Play (aka Eric Bradner)