that scottish play ...

shakespeare's scottish play ...

[10.05.01] Did you know that it is considered unlucky to say "Macbeth?" The play, it is said, carries a curse, and if the forbidden word is spoken, ill fortune befalls nearby actors and/or productions. Evidentially, the curse only applies if it is said in a theater or on the grounds of a production. To avoid the play's curse, it must, instead, be refered to as "the Scottish play."

I'd heard about the curse of Macbeth a long time ago; it was a high school english teacher who told my class about it when we were studying the play. But, in truth, I have never thought about it since, and would scarcely have thought twice about saying the forbidden name, no matter my locale.

I spent this past weekend at the Michigan Renaissance Festival tailing a reenactment group who performed stage combat for various shows at the faire. Early in the afternoon on Sunday, word got around that one of the performers had fallen and injured his knee and would not be able to perform in the afternoon. There was no understudy, and so a major feature fight had to be cut from the scene, to the chagrin of actors and audience alike.

A number of the members of the team were upset with another cast member because he had said "Macbeth" repeatedly that morning and denounced the existence of the curse. The fight team felt that he had beckoned bad luck, and the injury was the consequence (not to mention the mop that caught fire in another scene!). They together issued a warrant with the village jailer for the naysayer's arrest as reprimand for his disavowal of the curse and responsibility for the injured fighter's misfortune. (Below is a picture of him after his arrest.)

My curiosity was piqued by the occasion, and so I decided to refresh my memory and do some research on the historical misfortunes of the Scottish play.

It seems that William Shakespeare, in his zeal to please King James I, an authority on demonology, chose to include a 17th century magic ritual in the first Scene of Act IV. By not changing a single ingredient, he provided step-by-step instructions to budding witches and a methodical veiw of the art to his audiences:

"Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw,
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venum sleeping got.
Boil thoug first i' the charmed pot"

... and so on.

The ritual's practitioners were angered and offended by this detailed public exposure of their witchcraft, and it is said that as punishment they cast an everlasting spell on the play. Macbeth now has some 400 years of unmitigated disaster. Here are a few examples:

1606	In the very first performance, William Shakespeare himself was forced to take the part of Lady Macbeth when the boy designated to play her, Hal Berridge, died suddenly of an inexplicable fever. In addition, King James I disliked the play so much that he banned it for five years.
1672	In a performance in Amsterdam, an actor playing Macbeth secretly swapped the dull stage daggar with a real one, which he used to murder the actor playing Duncan in front of a captivated audience.
1775	Sarah Siddons, after playing Lady Macbeth was nearly ravaged by a disapproving audience.
1849	A riot broke out during a performance at New York's Astor Place, killing 31 people.
1926	Also playing Lady Macbeth, Sybil Thorndike was almost strangled by another actor.
1934	Malcolm Keen, a British actor designated to play the lead, became inexplicably mute onstage. His understudy, Alister Sim, developed a dangerously high fever and was hospitalized.
1937	When Laurence Olivier took on the role of Macbeth, a 25-pound stage weight crashed within an inch of him. Later, his sword broke onstage, flew into the audience, and hit an elderly man, causing him a fatal heart attack.
1942	In John Gielgud's production, three actors died--Duncan and two of the witches--and the costume and set designer committed suicide amid his work.
1948	After being cast as Lady Macbeth, Diana Wynyard sleep-walked off the rostrum and fell 15 feet.
1953	In an outdooor performance in Bermuda, Charlton Heston suffered from severe burns in the groin and leg area from wearing tights that were accidentally pre-soaked in kerosene.
1970	Rip Torn's production attempt was foiled by an actors' strike.
1971	Two fires and seven robberies plagued a version starring David Leary.
1981	Kenneth Campbell, cast as Macduff for a production at Lincoln Center, was mugged shortly after opening.
1984	A highly-publicized production starring Glenda Jackson and Christopher Plummer endured three directors, five Macduffs, six cast changes, two set designers, two lighting designers, 26 bouts of flu, a twisted knee, several torn ligaments, and groin injuries.

This is where my reasearch ends, but I am told that there are many, more recent examples of the power and lasting affects of the curse. Now, I am not a superstitious person, and I am known to denounce urban legends, curses, ghost stories, etc. However, with the immensely ill-fated history of this play, and the dedication of so many actors to the belief of the Macbeth curse (some insist that you may not even quote from the play unless you are rehearsing or performing it), I have obtained a sliver of respect for this particular myth. This curse, it seems, has become more or less a custom in the acting world. Walk up to an actor and ask him/her, "Which is the play that is cursed?" Odds are, even if you're not standing in a theater, the answer will be "the Scottish play" rather than "Macbeth."

You see, it's a good-luck charm: a way of being careful, of not tempting Murphy's Law. Even if curses aren't real and the word "Macbeth" is not the cause of accidents in the theatrical world, avoiding the word is a bit of security -- a tradition, if you will.

I can appreciate that, and henceforth I shall be refering to it as "the Scottish play."

sources ...

My only source is a xeroxed article which was given me by a high school english teacher. Unfortunately, she didn't include the biblographical info on the handout.