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BS: 'The Scottish Play'

14 Feb 06 - 07:05 PM (#1668619)
Subject: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: *Laura*

What do you think about 'the curse' of Macbeth?
Is it a daft thespian supersition or is there something in it?

I'm doing some research - any thoughts or experiences gratefully received!

xLx

14 Feb 06 - 07:13 PM (#1668628)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Peace

One view . . . .

14 Feb 06 - 08:59 PM (#1668716)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: HuwG

Hot potato, off his drawers, Puck will make amends. Owww !


(About twenty-fifth quote down in Blackadder the Third quotations.)

15 Feb 06 - 01:54 AM (#1669038)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: GUEST,Boab

If the so called "curse of Macbeth" has any connection to Wullie Shakespeare's play then it has as much connection to truth as the Bush-blair buildup to the Iraqi "war".

15 Feb 06 - 03:03 AM (#1669059)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: alanabit

If you did your research, you could probably come up with similar stories about "As You Like It" or "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Any play, which gets performed as often as MacBeth is going to have its fair share of disasters. It is easy to pick out all the disasters rather than the thousands of occasions, when everything passed off without incident. "Dog didn't bite man", "Husband gets home safely from work," are the usual truths, but they make rotten stories!

15 Feb 06 - 03:27 AM (#1669067)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Paul Burke

Remember that for nearly a hundred years after the play was written, people believed in witchcraft enough to hang people (in England) or burn them (in most of the rest of Europe) on suspicion of it. People would have been as unnerved by the incantations of the witches, as they would be today by a scene in which a character reads out a recipe for a terrorist bomb.

In a climate of belief even more simplistic than present day America, they would have expected an ever- vigilant and vengeful God to visit nemesis on them, and it's in the nature of superstitions to count any untoward occurrance as confirmation.

15 Feb 06 - 04:32 AM (#1669086)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Jeanie

I agree with Alanabit - things happen in and around plays when they are being rehearsed and performed, whatever the play, (just as they do within any group of people carrying out any kind of job or activity) but when they happen around "That Play" they are given a greater significance, and everybody goes "Ooooh errrrr.... what's going to happen NEXT ?" and start looking out for things or connections, then the recalling of the events become part of the general accumulated mythology and the tales are told for years to come.

However, just to spook you Laura, I was First Witch in a production of the play three years ago: on the way back from the audition, someone drove into the back of my car. A few weeks after rehearsals started, my cousin's ex-wife and son were stabbed to death. I never told anyone in the cast about this, for fear of scaring them out of their wits. For all I know, other things had happened around other people in the play, and they had kept quiet about them too.

On the OTHER hand, I do still believe what I said at the outset: With all the superstition around this play, it's easier to say that things happen *because* of it, rather than that they would have happened *anyway*. Last year, when I was in "The Merchant of Venice", my mother went into hospital for a heart operation and died - but because there is no mythology around the Merchant, nobody would even think of linking the two.

It's always possible to *start* a mythology, of course. I was in a production of a play called "Bums on Seats" last year. One member of the cast was thrown off her moped on the way home one night. (She was OK).

And how about creating some positive mythology, maybe ? At the moment I'm rehearsing a play called "Lucky Sods" about people who win the Lottery - and all the cast are buying tickets !

Break a leg, Laura !

- jeanie

15 Feb 06 - 07:41 AM (#1669199)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Bunnahabhain

Once you have a myth associated with something, as the witchcraft connection of this play would do quite happily in the first century of the plays life, people become nervous around it. A nervous stage-hand is that bit more likley to drop a back drop on someone. Now the curse has caused an accident, so it's believed in that bit more. Positive feedback....

If there's something big in Loch Ness, then there's something in plenty of other lochs, but people are only wanting or expecting to see something in the one. You get a self re-inforcing myth.

As noted above, people will also remember the accidents more so than for other plays.

15 Feb 06 - 03:34 PM (#1669642)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Raedwulf

My explanation is Murphy's Law. You all know that this means "the worst will always happen". However, QED mounted an investigation of this quite a few years ago.

[Parenthesis: For those that don't know, QED was a BBC TV series that looked into a variety of scientific questions, attempting to assert some kind of empirical proof for or against. Originally, it was reasonably serious in its approach. In later years, which is when I remember the "Murphy's Law" episode dating from, it became rather "pop" & a bit superficial.]

Its conclusion was that Murphy's Law is a matter of perception, rather than statistics.

The bread does not always fall butter side down.

The other queue does not always move quicker.

Particularly with regard to the latter, you do not remember the occasions when your queue moved quicker, you do not remember the occasions when your queue moved slower but you were distracted (a phone call, a conversation with a friend...), you do not really remember the times when you weren't paying much attention to how fast your queue was moving.

What you remember is the times when you were in a hurry and your queue was moving slower. Each & every occurence reinforces the perception that "The other queue always moves quicker", "the bread always falls butter side down", etc.

It's not that it does, it's just that you remember when it does, because it's such a nuisance when it does! I suspect the same perception is true of Macbeth. Jeanie doesn't remember the time that she got a part in a play, & something nice happened to her. She remembers the time she got a part in a play & something nasty happened to her.

AND THAT PLAY WAS MACBETH & IT HAS THE REPUTATION OF BEING AN UNLUCKY PLAY!

QED, really...

15 Feb 06 - 03:43 PM (#1669652)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Clinton Hammond

It's as big a load of crap as the Bermuda Triangle...

Draw a similar sized triangle over any area of the ocean (especially one that is over a major shipping lane or 2) and you'll find just as many 'odd' occurrences....

Thought I do enjoy needling theatre wankers who get bent outa shape by the 'superstition'

(See 3rd season Blackadder episode called "The Actors" IIRC)

15 Feb 06 - 05:03 PM (#1669724)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Seamus Kennedy

Adam McNaughtan of "Oor Hamlet" fame has also written a wonderful condensed version of Macbeth which he calls 'The Scottish Song."

Seamus

16 Feb 06 - 05:52 AM (#1669972)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: The Fooles Troupe

There's a guy who does a single handed version of the play - plays all 30 odd roles.. (!!!) and is now touring Australia after having done it overseas.

16 Feb 06 - 07:35 AM (#1669994)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: A Wandering Minstrel

Well actors are a superstitious bunch at best. There's also an injunction when performing Marlowe's "Faust" not to count the devils onstage in the last scene in case you total to one more than the available actors! :)

and as for whistling....

17 Feb 06 - 12:37 AM (#1670779)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: GUEST,M.Ted

Say what you want, but:

One of the worst disasters in the history of the theatre took place May 10, 1849 at the Astor Place Opera House. Two of the most famous stars of the day, American Edwin Forrest (left) and "the eminent tragedian, " Englishman William Charles Macready , were announced to play Macbeth on the same night. A professional feud, fueled by jingoism erupted into a scene of violence not seen before or since in the annals of the theatre. When the smoke cleared, twenty men lay dead, and the theatre destroyed.

From : The Astor Place Riots

17 Feb 06 - 12:40 AM (#1670786)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: SunnySister

As a former actor, we took this VERY seriously. Still do, in fact.

--SunnySister

17 Feb 06 - 09:58 AM (#1671067)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Clinton Hammond

As an actor, I don't... and I won't take it seriously...

17 Feb 06 - 08:31 PM (#1671565)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Tattie Bogle

Break a leg!
TB

18 Feb 06 - 11:38 AM (#1671955)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Raedwulf

TB - Preferably someone else's...

Ted - That only proves my point. The one memorable incident is remembered & enters into folklore. The thousands of unexceptionable non-incidents are entirely forgotten. And a reputation grows...

18 Feb 06 - 06:39 PM (#1672378)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: The Fooles Troupe

Ooh! Ow!

What happened?

I broke my leg!

How did that happen?

Well I took a hammer, and...


(by Spike Milligan)

20 Feb 06 - 01:28 AM (#1673516)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: M.Ted

Your point is wasted on me,Raedwulf. There are many entertaining and interesting bits of history tied up in this bit of theatre folklore--all of which you miss out on if you dismiss the central conceit--

As for the business about the butter side of the bread falling down and such things--you will be surprised to find that it does, and you can read how physicist Robert A.J. Matthews established that QED was wrong-Tumbling toast, Murphy's Law and the Fundamental Constants --

All I know is, Everything You Know Is Wrong!!!!!!

20 Feb 06 - 02:02 PM (#1673971)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Cats

I used to work in the theatre and we took it VERY seriously.    If you said the M word you had to turn round 3 times and spit.

20 Feb 06 - 02:08 PM (#1673979)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Clinton Hammond

If you did that when I was in the threatre with you, I'd never stop saying Macbeth!

You could dance around like the ninnies in the Blackadder episode all you wanted....

20 Feb 06 - 04:59 PM (#1674124)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: M.Ted

You'd have to do the turning, CH--the spitting as well. The rest would enjoy watching you dancing around like an ninny--as we do now;-)

20 Feb 06 - 05:19 PM (#1674136)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Clinton Hammond

I refuse to kowtow to other people's stupid superstitions

20 Feb 06 - 07:10 PM (#1674241)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: The Fooles Troupe

... you already have enough of your own... ;-)

21 Feb 06 - 11:38 AM (#1674871)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: GUEST,leeneia

" If you said the M word you had to turn round 3 times and spit."

Strangely enough, even though cast and crew did that faithfully, colds, flu and TB ravaged them. Explain THAT, Mr. Scientist!

21 Feb 06 - 11:48 AM (#1674887)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: GUEST

Its not as bad as the curse of Diff'rent Strokes...

21 Feb 06 - 11:57 AM (#1674895)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Clinton Hammond

I have no superstitions

21 Feb 06 - 04:45 PM (#1675159)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: M.Ted

Clinton doth protest too much, methinks--oops, wrong play--

21 Feb 06 - 04:52 PM (#1675176)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Clinton Hammond

No... I simply don't have any superstitions, and when I find them in others, I find them insulting to human intelligence....

21 Feb 06 - 05:17 PM (#1675203)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Purple Foxx

I have always believed that it is bad luck to be superstitious.

21 Feb 06 - 05:32 PM (#1675217)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Clinton Hammond

That'd make a good t-shirt!

22 Feb 06 - 04:42 PM (#1676186)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Bill Hahn//\\

Now you've done it Ollie!! Went ahead and said the name of the Scottish Play. Woe to us all.   Turning and spitting now.

Bill Hahn

22 Feb 06 - 04:57 PM (#1676201)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Joybell

We're rehearsing a play at the moment. I was careful not to have anyone whistle, mention the Scottish Play, talk about l**k, all the rest. Everything's fine within our little group. However all around us in our little town the live drama gets wilder and wilder. One cast member actually did break her leg and I can't mention the other things it wouldn't be fair. Problem is will anyone pay to see our drama when the real world is so entertaining? Cheers, Joy

23 Feb 06 - 01:48 PM (#1676961)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Rapparee

I've seen several productions of Macbeth -- NONE had trouble and in one, at the University of Notre Dame, they broke house attendance records.

As for the Astor Place riots, there were other factors involved as well. Go look it up; I'm not doing your work for you.

When I was doing tech work, several things were considered unlucky: putting the bulbs in the fresnels wrong, missing your footing in the flies, falling on the Director, skidding off the stage and into the audience, and others.

Now, my very own brother was playing the Chorus in Antigone and was hit by a car immediately after leaving final dress & tech. He spent the night in the hospital and had to wear a long toga for the run instead of the short one. The next night the leading lady took ill. Finally, the Director said, "If anyone else gets sick or injured I'LL play the part!" -- since he was, shall we say?, rotund, the woman playing Antigone got well in a hurry. None of which makes "Antigone" a cursed play.

23 Feb 06 - 02:01 PM (#1676968)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: *Laura*

I'm not sure about that - I thought Antigone was pretty cursed when I was studying it last year with a very borrring teacher :-)

23 Feb 06 - 02:19 PM (#1676980)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Megan L

the only curse on the damned play is the one placed on it by Scottish historians for the way it demonised one of the finest kings and most stable reigns in our history.

23 Feb 06 - 04:58 PM (#1677102)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: M.Ted

Rapaire-I would have had to know about Astor Riots in order to mention them, don't you think?

23 Feb 06 - 05:34 PM (#1677134)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: Rapparee

Perhaps, only perhaps. I've ready the newspaper accounts and entries from McReady's diary (their on the web) and can't find anything that blames the play. Seems to have been a professional dispute blown up by anti-British sentiment. Stupid, really.

23 Feb 06 - 10:20 PM (#1677339)
Subject: RE: BS: 'The Scottish Play'
From: M.Ted

I am actually pretty familiar with this story, and probably have been through most of the stuff on the web-it is one of the more interesting and illuminating bits of theatre history--it gives a bit of comfort to those of us who feel that the country has suddenly gone crazy, because it shows we've always been this way.

Anyway, just because contemporary news accounts failed to attribute it to the Curse of the Scottish Play, there is no reason that we can't--