The Scottish Play
Warning! Culture Alert!

Actors are a suspicious lot. I have known, for example, people who wear the same pants for an entire run as the first time they wore them they didn’t forget a line. I myself have my own ritual which, if I don’t do it, leaves me convinced that the performance is going to go wrong in some way.

But the biggest, blackest, baddest thing that any actor can do is to utter the name of the ‘Scottish Play’. One word, a mere two syllables, can reduce an entire company of otherwise reasonably intelligent and rational human beings in to a bunch of gibbering wrecks.

But why? Why should the utterance of (and I’m going to throw all caution to the wind here and say it) Macbeth be so unutterably terrifying? Well, the crux of it is that Shakespeare’s 29th play has brought the superstition on itself with its depiction of Witchcraft. Just like Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus (C.1592), in which staged productions were rumoured to have raised real, actual devils, Macbeth was believed to flirt with evil – thus bringing upon it centuries and centuries of bad luck.

Now, the more sceptical among us would say that there are several elements of the play that are conducive to bad accidents. Bad light being one, or the use of big, heavy swords being another. The play itself is very short, meaning it can often be drastically under rehearsed, making mistakes a real possibility.

However, dear reader, this is not my experience. During a 1996 production of The Crucible, someone (who shall remain nameless, but let’s just say they were of demonic origin) loudly and proudly spake the word: “Macbeth”.

And thus began the worst night of any production I have ever been involved in, ever. Three satge lights blew out during the performance. A flat fell over in the wings and pressed the DSM against a wall. A small (but spectacularly destructive) fire broke out in a rehearsal room. And, perhaps most terrifying of all, I forgot my lines.

Oh yes, you may say that the lights suffered a power surge and overloaded the lights, or that the flat hadn’t been anchored properly as a result of a rushed get-in, or that the fire was started by a carelessly stubbed cigarette or even that if I had learned my lines better I wouldn’t have forgotten them.

But I say that I channelled Evil itself in to that theatre. And Evil likes nothing more than to ruin a good play.
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Tue 8 Jul 2008, 12:44, 6 replies)

Yeah
I had my own experience with the Macbeth curse. We were sitting in the drama room in our high school, I forget why, and for some reason someone said Macbeth. The drama teacher charged at him, screaming "No!" and suddenly there was a malfunction of the sound board, causing the levels to reach their maximum for a split second, blasting us with music. I'm not saying I believe in curses, but I do believe in maintaining some traditions that have superstitious origins.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Tue 8 Jul 2008, 13:17, closed)

"And Evil likes nothing more than to ruin a good play"
Except that's a crap play. Touted by Mr S as a historic work, it's about as close to the truth as a Barbara Cartland novel.

Plus I had to memorise great screeds of it in High School, which may have biased me somewhat.

"Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be all that thou art promised"
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Tue 8 Jul 2008, 13:46, closed)

TWW
Did you act in a production of it?

And were you typecast?
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Tue 8 Jul 2008, 13:50, closed)

@K2k6
nope - they wouldn't have let the monster that was the teenage WeeWitch near the luvvies who did our school plays.

I mean, I had a personality and everything. They'd never have coped!
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Tue 8 Jul 2008, 13:52, closed)

GAAH!
Hot potato, off his drawers, Puck will make amends!
( Madam Marlboro wonders if you've found her yet, Tue 8 Jul 2008, 16:17, closed)

^You.
FTW! :)
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Tue 8 Jul 2008, 16:18, closed)