Category Archives: general

“Good Luck” v “Break a Leg”

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Kirkland, WA
Performance Date: 4/30/20
Primary Language: English

Informant: So, actors are very superstitious. We don’t know why we are, but we are. It’s probably because we spend a lot of time backstage in the dark, and there’s a lot of things that could go wrong. There are things flying over our heads, there’s moving parts and moving people and it’s easy enough to forget a line as it is, let alone when something is falling on you. So, usually it’s bad luck to say “Good luck” to an actor before going onstage, so you say “Break a leg.” I think this originally originated for a couple of reasons. I’ve heard that originally you used to stomp instead of clap, so “break a leg” was like the audience appreciating whatever you did. As well as the legs on the side of the stage – to enter you have to physically break through them, so it was like “have a good entrance…”? And I think there was one more, along the lines of – I don’t know. Every actor you’ll talk to will have a different answer of why we have these rules, which is confusing as to why we have them at all then. But it’s something you start to think about as you’re getting ready, because if someone says “good luck,” you know how the show’s gonna go… I don’t know if that’s because we psych ourselves out or whatever.

Background: 
My informant is a 20-year-old college student, majoring in theatre, who recently returned from a study-abroad semester in London, England. She’s been doing theatre for twelve years now in various parts of the country, so she’s heard many versions of theatre legends, tales, superstitions, and other pieces of theatre folklore.

Thoughts:
I personally don’t believe in this particular theatre superstition. I’ve never had an experience where saying “good luck” actually resulted in bad luck onstage. I’ve found that many people seem to forget it happened if it’s said backstage, whereas no one forgets if you say Macbeth, which is one of the other biggest theatre legends. Out of respect for tradition and those who do believe in this superstition, I try to avoid saying it.

Bloody Mary

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Globe, Arizona
Performance Date: 4/29/20
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Informant: Do you know Bloody Mary?

Me: We have Bloody Mary, but I don’t really know the backstory or anything. What was your version?

Informant: I don’t know the backstory either. It was basically just – you go to the mirror, and you say “Bloody Mary” three times and then she’ll appear. I don’t really know what happens after that, but I know it’s scary, and her eyes and face are all bloody. But also just looking in mirrors can be creepy if you’re there long enough without moving, so that can be enough sometimes. Especially at night. Oh! It has to be at night, I forgot. 

Me: Is it just any old mirror? At any point in the day? Because my Bloody Mary – we had to go into the bathroom, and turn the lights off, spin around three times, and you had to be by yourself… and spin around while saying her name, so every time you spun, you’d say her name, and you’d stumble around in the dark and find the sink, and once you were holding onto the sink, you’d try to find the lightswitch on the wall while still holding on, and once you turned on the lights again she’d appear in the mirror.

Informant: Haha! We never had that. We didn’t have a spinning thing. I also heard it from my sister, not at school or anything, so she may have toned it down for me so she didn’t want to scare me. It was supposed to be dark though, supposed to be at night. I don’t think it’s real, but like… why risk it?  

Background:
My informant is a 19-year-old college student at USC, who grew up in a small town in Arizona. She is the youngest of three sisters, who she thinks may have toned down the story elements of various legends or myths to avoid scaring her. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this piece was collected via an interview that took place over FaceTime. 

Thoughts:
I think everyone has their own version of Bloody Mary, which is why I really wanted to ask my informant about this. I grew up in Washington state, and she grew up in Arizona; I wanted to know what the differences were between my experiences with Bloody Mary and hers. For some reason, my experience with it growing up was a lot more specific, with a lot more rules to follow to make it work. Hers was really general. I wonder if that’s a reflection of the environments we grew up in: I attended an academically rigorous high school, and the elementary school systems were prepping us for that level of intense education since kindergarten. Her school systems functioned quite differently, were a lot looser, and put more value on effort than following all the rules to a letter. I wonder if that’s why my school’s version of Bloody Mary was so much stricter than hers.

Tió de Nadal, A Catalan Christmas Tradition

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Kansas City, MO
Performance Date: 4/12/20
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Main Piece:

“The Tio de Nadal is a Catalan Christmas tradition that some Catalonia immigrant communities brought with them to other parts of the world, particularly in the Western Hemisphere there are big Catalan populations that still do it. But basically what it is a little log that you prop up on a kind of legs or stool or something. You can draw a face on it, you don’t have to. You put a blanket on it but you put it up weeks before Christmas and then it’s something fun for kids to do because you get a stick and you beat on it with the stick. And there’s all sorts of Catalan language chants and little songs, you know like Christmas songs, that they sing to encourage the log to shit out presents. Like small nuts and candies are the traditional idea because its a medieval tradition so like little sweets basically. The idea is that if you hit the log well enough, then on Christmas, you can take off the blanket and then the little kids are gonna have a bunch of little almonds or cheeses or something that they got from the log. There’s all sorts of names for it but there are regional specifications in Catalonia.”

Background:

The informant is a 21-year old male from Kansas City, Missouri who has lived there for the majority of his life. For his elementary and middle-school schooling, he studied at a school with a Spanish immersion program, making him near fluent in Spanish. Furthermore, he now attends Georgetown University where he intends to graduate with a major in History and a minor in Spanish. Last semester, he spent several months living in Madrid as part of a study abroad program.

Context:

This was a conversation we had late at night about Holiday celebrations around the world.

Thoughts: 

This piece, to me, seems very rooted in old Catalan culture. One of the most interesting revelations that came about researching this topic and talking to my informant is how the piece relates to Catalan identity. Catalonia has infamously had issues with the Spanish mainland as it relates to their own identity. Oftentimes, the celebration and practice of Catalan traditions have been restricted in order to better assimilate them into Spanish culture, so by celebrating these old traditions, it seems like a method of rejecting the push to assimilate and a method of maintaining their own unique identity from Spain. The other interesting part to this piece is the timing of the piece as it is close to Christmas, which is a liminal time for a majority of Europe.  As mentioned above, the origins of the practice go as far back as Medieval times and it seems to still be practice in Catalan culture. Furthermore, it does not seem to fit into the Christian canon of traditions associated with Christmas, making me feel like this might have roots back to Pagan rituals. This outlook is only further supported by the emphasis of the piece being wood, which would fit the notion of Pagan holidays that celebrate the natural world. Finally, the informant is not from Spain, but has visited there and taken the culture and reworked it into his own Christmas celebrations which somewhat shows the spread of originally location-specific culture to entirely new places and contexts. This type of reinterpretations across such a large physical location would not be nearly as possible with modernity and the increase in cross-cultural communications.

“Shame Shame Shame” Hand-clap Game

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 16
Occupation: Student
Residence: Kansas City, MO
Performance Date: 3/10/20
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Main Piece:

“Shame Shame Shame,

I don’t want to go to Mexico no more more more,

There’s a big fat policeman at the door door door,

He grabbed me by the collar,

Made me pay a dollar,

I don’t want to go to Mexico no more more more,

Shame!”

Background:

This piece was recited to me by my informant in reference to their childhood and elementary school memories. The informant is now a junior in high-school but for their K-8 education, she attended a Spanish immersion public school with a large Mexican population. Kansas City, where the informant lives, has a substantial Spanish-speaking population.

Context:

This piece was shared with me several times throughout my life but was recently brought up by her when asking about memories from her childhood. The exact conversation was conducted via cellphone

Thoughts:

This piece is very interesting to me, mostly because it seems to be another version of a pretty recognizable childhood game. My informant told me that she learned this hand-clap game from friends while attending a Spanish immersion school. However, as she grew up, she learned that this is just a variant of a more traditionally accepted version of the game. Mostly, the policeman in this version is usually replaced with a bully. In my opinion, this is a reflection of the fear of authority and programs like ICE, for Spanish-speaking immigrants. The school my informant attended had a substantial population of Spanish-speaking students who were first generation United States citizens, if that. As such, when assimilating into United States culture, they adopted childhood games like hand-clap. However, they changed it to replace the classic bully figure with that of police, maybe because they would realistically have grown up being told that they were to be wary of police officers, as it could mean deportation or harsh punishments on account of their status as first generation immigrants. It also seems to place Mexico as an bad place, which further reflects the goal of moving forward and becoming part of the culture there. In this respect, the game is almost pushing one to abandon their original culture in order to adapt, as many of these students were the children of Mexican immigrants who were attempting to make ends meet in a new culture. 

There’s A Man in The Woods

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 16
Occupation: Student
Residence: Kansas City, MO
Performance Date: 4/21/20
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“I have a story about the man in the woods at the soccer field. So, as a child, my brothers and I participated in Brookside Soccer, which is you know like your average recreational soccer thing that children do and a lot of my friends, or at least a lot of people in my grade, also had older siblings who did Brookside and there was this one field, I don’t know how old my brothers were, but they would always play on this certain field and whenever I was there I would see people in my grade who also had older brothers who were playing and the big deal with this field was there was a huge forest surrounding it. The thing about the forest is, on the outskirts of it, would grow honeysuckles, and especially as a young child, they looked tasty. So the whole appeal to the soccer field- it was kinda great because we could eat honey suckles. So me and my friends, we would always go the border and get honeysuckles but you wanted to be fast because the whole idea was there was a man living inside- if you went a little deeper into the forest, you would inf a man and a campsite or something. The guy was always depicted as a homeless guy with a big beard and kinda dirty and ruffled. The whole idea was that you didn’t want him to catch you. There’s another part of the story, that in the forest where he stayed, there was an aluminum trash can that you would see around the soccer field. The idea was that as a kid, you would go to the trashcan by the soccer field and he could hear you. There was also a little bit of part of like asking for wishes, through the trash can to the homeless guy. So i don’t understand why we were scared of him but also like he would help us? The idea is that you’d want honeysuckles but you had to be quick because you didn’t want to see the man in the woods.”

Background:

My informant is a 16-year old who lives in Kansas City, Missouri. She and her two older brothers participated in a recreational soccer program when they were much younger based out of a neighborhood in Kansas City called Brookside. The school she attended was the same school her brothers went to and so it was not uncommon for friends of her brothers to have younger siblings she got along with. Oftentimes, she would come along to the recreational soccer matches and play with the other younger siblings. The area the soccer matches happens to contain several large fields, a few of which bordered dense forest as this area was on the outskirts of the town.  

Context:
My informant brought up this story during a walk around her neighborhood when I asked her about scary stories from her childhood. 

Thoughts:

This story appears to be in the vein of urban legends about some crazed killer. In addition, it serves a very clear purpose, that being of regulating where these young children could and could not go. My informant emphasized how this topic came about mostly because her and her friends wanted honeysuckles from the nearby woods. Therefore, they probably created this figure from similar urban legends they had heard in order to justify not exploring the woods any further. This was only reinforced by any figures of authority, who did not want them to explore the woods. The informant mentioned to me that her older brothers might have corroborated parts of her story to instill the fear of the woods and keep her closer to everyone else during these soccer matches. The other interesting component is how a homeless man in the woods is scary for a child living in the city. The informant told me that she lived in a city, and these soccer matches were a time where she and her friends were far away from that environment. As such, their fears as an amalgam of the fear of strange men, which she would have seen growing up, and that of the woods, which were far more unknown and mysterious to her. The man is not supernatural, but to them he represented a very real threat but in a strange environment.