(courtesy of inversetheatre.com)
Perhaps
you’ve heard of the "Scottish Curse," the
worst
in a minefield of theater superstitions. I'm personally
not
a believer, but it's still good to be aware of theater's
taboos.
That's because you can spook out another actor if you
break
one, and also because these superstitions can often shed
light
on the history of the theater.
Anyway,
here it is:
Don't
say "Macbeth," or quote that play, in a theater. Ever.
Supposedly,
it'll bring disaster. In actual fact, Stanislavski,
Orson
Welles, and Charlton Heston all suffered some catastrophe
during
or just after a production of Macbeth. And in 1849, more
than
30 New Yorkers were killed when rioting broke out during a
performance
of the play. Abe Lincoln read Macbeth the night
before he was assassinated.
There
are several “antidotes” to the Scottish Curse, most of which
involve
acting rather oddly. One which I know
of is to go outside
of
the theatre, turn around three times, spit over your shoulder,
and
swear loudly three times. Such
antidotes just seem silly,
but
then again so does the curse itself. J
Fate
often hands us exactly what we don't want, so what better
way
to trick destiny than by hoping for the opposite of what we
desire?
This could be the origin of wishing that someone "break
a
leg."
Matt
Daniels has another explanation: "To break a leg was to
hope
the actor would have so many curtain calls that his
trousers
would be permanently creased." Others submitted that in
Shakespeare's
time, "to break" was "to bend," and so it means,
"bend
your leg" (in other words, take a lot of bows).
Every
theater has a "ghost light" which is never turned off.
It's
probably there to guide the first and last person into and
out
of the theater. But for centuries a myth has held that the
light
is protection from spirits -- if the theater ever went
completely
dark, ghosts would realize everyone had gone and then
proceed
to cause all sorts of mischief.
I love this one. Supposedly, in the olden
days, stage hands
were
out-of-work sailors (theaters and ships share a profusion
of
ropes) who communicated with complex whistles. So, if you
were
walking around stage whistling a tune, you could
accidentally
call down a sandbag onto your head!