Fact
The Scottish Play and the The Bard's Play are euphemisms for William Shakespeare's Macbeth. The first is a reference to the play's Scottish setting, the second a reference to Shakespeare's popular nickname. According to a theatrical superstition, called the Scottish curse, speaking the name Macbeth inside a theatre will cause disaster. A variation of the superstition forbids direct quotation of the play (except during rehearsals) while inside a theatre.
Those who believe in the curse claim that real spells are cast in the
three witches scene. Some believers claim that including the character Hecate, frequently cut from productions of the play due to questions about her part's authorship, intensifies the curse. Actors who do not believe the superstition will sometimes abstain out of politeness to those that do. Productions of Macbeth are said to have been plagued with accidents. According to legend, this dates back to the premiere of the play: an actor died because a real dagger was mistakenly used instead of the prop.[citation needed] The play does include more fight scenes and other such opportunities for accidents than does the average play, and the atmosphere in the backstage area of old-fashioned theatres was a prime setting for disasters, especially when dealing with potentially dangerous equipment. This would explain the accidents without invoking magic.
The popularity of the superstition might also be related to its mild hazing aspect. Veteran actors might relate some tale of woe that they witnessed personally due to someone invoking the curse, lending credibility and immediacy to the tale.
One hypothesis for the origin of this superstition is that Macbeth, being a popular play, was commonly put on by theatres in financial trouble, or that the high production costs of Macbeth put theatres in financial trouble, and hence an association was made between a production of Macbeth and theatres going out of business.[1] According to the actor Sir Donald Sinden, in his Sky Arts TV series Great West End Theatres, "contrary to popular myth, Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth is not the unluckiest play as superstition likes to portray it. Exactly the opposite! The origin of the unfortunate moniker dates back to repertory theatre days when each town and village had at least one theatre to entertain the public. If a play was not doing well, it would invariably get 'pulled' and replaced with a sure-fire audience pleaser - Macbeth guaranteed full-houses. So when the weekly theatre newspaper, The Stage was published, listing what was on in each theatre in the country, it was instantly noticed what shows had NOT worked the previous week, as they had been replaced by a definite crowd-pleaser. More actors have died during performances of Hamlet than in the "Scottish play" as the profession still calls it. It is forbidden to quote from it backstage as this could cause the current play to collapse and have to be replaced, causing possible unemployment."[2]
According to the superstition, Shakespeare got a few of the lines from an actual coven of witches and when they saw the play they were greatly offended and cursed the play.[citation needed] Another tradition tells that the original propmaster could not find a suitable pot for a cauldron and stole one from a coven, who then cursed the play in revenge for the theft.[citation needed] It is believed that breaking the taboo calls the ghosts of the
three witches to the show and it is they who cause all the mishaps. The last, and probably most spectacular view of the curse is that Shakespeare used the curse in the play to actually curse the play himself, guaranteeing that no one other than himself would be able to direct the play.[citation needed] It is also reported that when Shakespeare learned that James I, whose Scottish heritage he was trying to celebrate with the play, had not particularly enjoyed it, he became bitterly disappointed and would only refer to the play as "that Scottish play" for the rest of his life.
Source:
The Scottish Play - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
