Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Theater Occupational Superstition: Macbeth (Version I)

Nationality: American
Age: 63
Occupation: Adjunct Faculty at the University of Southern California
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 20th, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: German, French

Interview Extraction

Informant:”Now the interesting thing about a lot of old stories is- and this is actually something we mentioned in class, how there are often two or three explanations that might not even relate to one another for many of the old stories or traditions.  The Macbeth legend that I know, there are two- no, three variations of the Macbeth legend.  One is the story that the incantations used are actual witch’s incantations so therefore if you believe in witchcraft you do not want to evoke them.  The second one on Macbeth is that, Macbeth being an old ‘war horse’ and an audience favorite, was frequently the play that would replace a show that wasn’t doing well.  So if you heard someone talking about Macbeth, you didn’t like it because it meant that the play you are doing might be closing early, and be replaced by a revival of Macbeth.  I kind of like that legend the best.”

Analysis:

The Macbeth superstition is among the most common superstitions that people working in theater follow.  The legend of Macbeth is that it is bad luck to say ‘Macbeth’ in the theater.  To prevent unlucky things from happening such as the set falling over, people are encouraged to say ‘The Scottish Play’.  If you do make the mistake of saying ‘Macbeth’, you have to cut the curse by performing some kind of protection ritual.  This ritual changes based on who you talk to due to the fact that it is such widespread legend and many people have different ideas about the curse.  The first time I heard about the legend was in Boston when I broke the rule of not saying ‘Macbeth’ in the theater, and the people I was with made me run around the theater three times to cure the curse.  The next time I heard about ‘The Scottish Play’ legend was in Los Angeles, where the cure for the curse was to spin around three times and spit over your shoulder.  It is hard to say if the cure changes based on your location because people in theater often travel for work, so the ideas on the legend would be mixed.  There are many different origin stories behind the legend of Macbeth, and the stories my informant mentions are only some possibilities.

I am familiar with the legend that Shakespeare might have used real witch’s incantations in his play, but I am not sure if this is true.  It depends on your beliefs about witchcraft.  I think the reason why this particular legend is so popular is because witchcraft and magic hold such a high place of fascination in our imaginations, and believing in them is fun.  People are attracted to theater because it is about the magic of storytelling.  Therefore when people in theater participate in these kind of belief systems, they are doing so because it is an extension of working in an occupation that is full of play.  Theater is like magic in the fantastical sense, we rely on illusions to invoke a spectacular idea in the imaginations of the audience.

I was not familiar with the idea that perhaps Macbeth has transformed into a superstition based on the idea that it is a show that frequently replaces unsuccessful productions.  It is very possible that this legend is the true reason behind why the play has become part of theater lore.  This is because Macbeth is a very popular production and you can always find it being performed during a production season, so I can easily see it replacing a show that didn’t prove to be popular.  If this is true, then Macbeth probably evolved into a superstition of bad luck because it has it’s origins in bad luck.

My informant was born in 1949, Connecticut.  He works as a costume designer in the entertainment industry occasionally, and serves as the head of the USC costume shop in addition to being a faculty member for the USC School of Dramatic Arts.  He has more than 40 years of experience in the theater.

Orchestra Joke: Percussionist

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student (Oboe Performance, Music Composition)
Residence: Mount Vernon, Washington
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

Q: How can you tell that a percussionist is at your door?

A: The knocking speeds up.

My informant says this joke is so widespread that she’s heard it multiple times, and she thinks she first learned it in elementary school in a children’s orchestra she was in. The stereotype in orchestras is that percussionists can’t keep beat and are constantly speeding up. This joke is an example of blason populaire—the joke relies on the stereotype that brass players have difficulty staying on beat. The joke also promotes group identity within an orchestra, since it would need to be explained to someone who isn’t part of an orchestra. It’s interesting that my informant first learned this joke in a children’s orchestra, where it was probably likely that most players were often off beat. Even though most elementary schoolers have trouble staying on beat, the percussionist stereotype was so widespread in orchestra culture that members repeated the joke to each other even when it wasn’t necessarily true in their own experiences.

Rabbit Rabbit

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/15/12
Primary Language: English

I interviewed my informant, from Portland, Oregon, about his familial traditions. He noted that he grew up with a certain saying that his family would repeat. On the first day of every month, they would all say:

“Rabbit, Rabbit”.

It was a tradition that was passed down from his mother’s family that she had grown up with. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents immigrated to New York from England. The interviewee said that his parents believed it stemmed from the “fact that in some parts of the world, rabbit legs are a symbol of good luck”. My informant remembers his mother discussing the tradition with him when he was a boy. She had always told him to perform this saying right as he awoke on the first day of every month, and that he would have good luck for the rest of the month. By the end of the month, she told him that he would receive a present. This present could have been mental, physical, or any other form of present possible. If it were his birth month, he would have “extra luck”, according to his mother. She had always told him that the tradition had followed her family from back in England, where it is a popular saying. It was also popular, she said, on the east coast where she had grown up. Their family then brought it to Oregon, where they now reside.

My informant remembered a specific time when he realized that it was a rather unfamiliar saying in Portland. “I guess I had always just thought that everybody said it” he noted, “but whenever it would be the first of the month and I would say it with my friends, they would always give me a weird look and ask me what I was doing”. But, the informant said, that didn’t stop him from saying it. “I would always just laugh”, he said, “and think to myself how much luckier I would be than them that month”.

I had never heard this specific piece of folklore before my interview with my informant. I, therefore, have relied on his telling of its history as accurate. I believe it is a typical good luck omen.

Carrots Improve Your Vision

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/21/12
Primary Language: English

My informant, a fellow dorm-mate of mine at USC, was eating whole raw carrots one night as I was walking past his room. I turned in, asking him why he would be eating such a snack. He said, half-jokingly, haven’t you heard?

“Carrots improve your vision”

Though this wasn’t the real reason that he was eating the carrot, I asked him more about the origins where he had heard such a thing. “I’m not sure”, he said “I just always heard that growing up as a kid. My dad used to say it to me when I didn’t want to eat my vegetables”. Others joined in the conversation as well, some saying it was fact, others stating it was myth.

After looking up this debate online, we found that it was once reported in the London Sunday telegraph that this rumor is a myth, and that it dates back all the way to WWII when Britan’s air ministry created the rumor that a steady diet of carrots would help their pilots see Nazi bombers that were attacking at night. In reality, the article read, it was to cover up their new technology of interception radar so the Nazi’s wouldn’t find out about it. Apparently it was so convincing that the English populous took to eating carrots to improve their vision (Sunday Telegraph). From then on, it appears the rumor has spread and hasn’t been overwhelmingly disproved to the many that still believe it. Further, I personally believe that much of its survival has been a tactic by parents to get their children to eat more vegetables and carrots. In addition, I believe the placebo effect may come into play in this situation, making individuals subconsciously convince themselves that their eyesight is improving after eating carrots.

Source:

London. Sunday Telegraph. “Don’t Expect to See Like a Hawk After Eating Your Carrots with Today’s Roast”. 9 March 2003. (p. 41).

Dream Catcher

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/12
Primary Language: English

My informant here brought up the notion of a “Dream Catcher”, and began to tell me about her dream catcher that she had growing up as a kid. She told me that the basis of her dream catcher was that it was a round piece of wood with leather bands webbed inside of it, with feathers coming out of the top and hanging from the bottom. She said that her parents had bought it for her at some point when she was in elementary school in Pennsylvania. She remembers her mom telling her that if she placed it on the outside doorknob of her room, it would catch all of the bad dreams and nightmares that she would have, and would only allow her to have good and sweet dreams.

My informant said that she believed in this notion completely, and left it on her door for years until she moved out of her house in high school. “I don’t think I would have been able to sleep without it” my informant said. She found solace in believing that it was there to protect her, even though she “knew it probably didn’t actually do anything real”.

My informant tells me that her parents told her that it was a longstanding Native American tradition to use dream catchers, and that it had protected them from nightmares for centuries. “It was just something I believed and didn’t think about too much”, she said, “after a while it completely just blended in with my door, it’s like it was supposed to be there”.

I believe that this piece of folklore may have truly been started by the Native Americans years ago, and transferred to many parts of our culture because it is a nice idea and a good way to find solace in your sleep. I feel that it has lived on through parents giving them to their children, perhaps because the parents truly believe in them, and perhaps because they feel that it is a good part of growing up. I would believe that it is mostly children that use dream catchers, but believe that many adults do as well, as a part of keeping a tradition that they have had since childhood.