Tag Archives: theatre

Theatre Pre-Performance Ritual for RENT

Main Piece

“[This ritual] is very common: the whole team tapping a sign before a game. In RENT, we have a plaque hand-carved by Jonathan Larson’s uncle that he carved when he died that his sister gave us. She came in and talked to our cast, and her and his college roommates gave us this plaque for the duration of our show. And it’s this big hand-carved plaque that says “Thank you, Jonathan Larson” on it. It’s hung up backstage, and after our group circle, we all have to go up to it one by one [before every performance] and like, place our hands on it and thank him before we go onstage to perform…Really simple, but we all do it and constantly remind each other of it and it’s really important to our cast.

Some of us like, if we’re feeling especially emotional, will literally sit in front of it and cry. I’m so serious, I’ve done that, ’cause Jonathan Larson is really important to me.”

Interpretation

Informant Interpretation: Informant related ritual to common sports team rituals of tapping a specific sign for luck or protection before a game. They also mentioned that the pre-RENT performance tapping of the sign was a means of “community building” and enabled cast members to “ground themselves” and “remind themselves about why they’re doing this piece of art.”

Personal Interpretation: This is clearly an important tradition to the informant and their cast, furthered by the subject matter of RENT (queer people living in NYC during the HIV/AIDS crisis) and fact that its creator, Jonathan Larson, died one day before the musical’s original opening in 1996. The sign is a physicalized reminder of the humanity and weight the show carries, and gives the cast members a material way to remember the real people it’s grounded in before going onstage. To me, it sounds like tapping this sign is a ritualized remembrance of the responsibility to tell and represent an important, nuanced story to the audience, and for the cast to honor the people around them–cast, crew, relatives, friends, and more–as well as the source of the art they’re bringing into the light.

Background

Informant is a 21 year old college student studying theatre at USC. The performance of RENT mentioned happened this semester, with rehearsals running January-April and performances in April. It was put on by the USC School of Dramatic Arts–informant performed in the ensemble for all performances. Informant is mixed race (white and Pacific Islander), and identifies as queer and fem-presenting.

Theater Macbeth Superstition

Text

“Ok so I’ve been doing theater since I was a little kid. And I remember the first time I heard of this superstition, I was like, 7 I think. I was in my first musical and someone started talking about the M word. And I was like, “what’s the M word?” And they refused to tell me and I didn’t know why, and I thought they were like, talking about McDonalds or something. Cause we were backstage in the dressing room of the theater. So they tell me it’s a word we can’t say in the theater because it’s cursed and will make the play go bad, and that someone said it last year during the music and an actress fell of the stage and broke her leg. And when we get outside the theater when we leave, they tell me the word is Macbeth. And from then on I knew you weren’t supposed to say it. I was in a theater camp a few years later and I remember our teacher taught us about the curse. And one of the kids actually said Macbeth, and we all got so mad, and our teacher actually made him go outside to reverse it. He had to go outside the theater, spit over his left shoulder, and turn around three times. We all like followed him outside to watch him do it. Then I remember when I was in middle school I was in the musical, and someone said it. And we swear that’s why any mistake in the show happened. Like one of our lead actors was sick during the show, and we said it was because someone said the cursed word, we call it the Scottish Play while in the theater. So it’s a big superstition in theater, everyone knows about it. I feel like it became less important when I got older, but I still like actually believe in it. I’m not super superstitious or anything, but that’s the one that I’m really serious about. I don’t tell stories about it as much anymore, it’s not as sensational anymore, but I’m dead serious when people threaten to say it during a musical. I fully will not say it in a theater, even if it’s stupid. It’s kind of like a badge of being a real theater actor, like you’re really one of us because you won’t say it.” 

Context

B is an 18-year-old college student who lives in the Bay Area in California. She has been doing theater for almost all her life, and still considers it a big part of her identity. She relays the superstition with a bit of conflict, because while she sometimes thinks it’s a little silly and doesn’t really believe a single word can be cursed in a certain location, she still reveres the superstition and won’t actually say it. This is a theater superstition that has been around for a long time, and she’s heard it in theaters across many states in the US. 

Analysis

This is a magic superstition, where the belief is that if you do a particular thing, it will lead to bad luck. It is also combined with a conversion superstition, with the description of the actions that must be done to get rid of the bad luck. Superstitions like these are common in careers like theater, because live theater has so many elements that are out of people’s control. Once the show has begun, anything could go wrong and the actors have no way to control it. They could blank on a line, there could be a tech malfunction, there is a lot of anxiety surrounding life theater no matter how well they prepare. This means that there are a lot of superstitions, because it gives people an illusion of control that could act as a placebo effect. They can think “This show will go great, no one has said the Scottish Play yet!” It’s also an example of cognitive dissonance. When things go wrong in live theater and people don’t really know why, they like to have something to blame to give an explanation to the unexplainable. “Why did I forget the line I’ve had memorized and perfect for weeks? Oh, because someone said Macbeth!” This superstition is also a form of ritual that creates identity, like in Van Genup’s Rites of Passage. When she was in her first musical, she wasn’t really part of the group because she didn’t know the superstition about Macbeth. Now that she’s older and more experienced, she takes it as a sign of her identity. She underwent the rite of passage of learning about the Macbeth superstition, so now it creates her identity as a thespian. Her maintained belief in the superstition shows how even when things aren’t necessarily scientific, people can still believe them despite their rational mind telling them it doesn’t make sense. Belief works even against rationality. And just because it hasn’t been scientifically proven doesn’t mean the superstition isn’t true. Maybe there is a correlation between someone say Macbeth and a show going wrong.

Theatre Tongue Twisters- A Pre-Performance Chant

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 2/14/23
Primary Language: English

Text:

“Whether the weather be cold or whether the weather be hot, we’ll be together whatever the weather, whether we like it or not.”

Context/Background:

NW is a USC senior who went to high school in San Diego. She was a member of her high school’s theater production. Before going on stage, the cast would perform this tongue twister as a “little good luck thing” to do together. To NW, it gave “the same energy as a huddle… I don’t think it was an actual good tongue twister. It was just for fun.” It was a dynamic performance; they would start off in a whisper and spread out, then would grow louder and clump together. It was a “little button” to boost the cast morale amidst skyrocketing nerves.

Interpretation:

Especially in the theatre community, tongue twisters can be practical exercises that enable performers to practice their diction and pronunciation, which is crucial for storytelling and communicating a message to the audience from the stage. Beyond its functional implications, this tongue twister has become ritualized in NW’s community. The pre-show routine has been extremely important in boosting the morale of the group and calming down their nerves. Specifically with live performances, there can be a lot of angst and fear of things going wrong; having a stable, consistent routine, such as the recitation of a tongue twister, can bolster focus and channel calmer energy. NW mentions that the tongue twister wasn’t even a “good” tongue twister, but it doesn’t change because it’s familiar and effective. Unlike proverbs, tongue twisters often don’t make sense or mean anything in particular, but they are performed out of habit and custom. It’s not necessarily about the content–it’s more about the setting and the people you are sharing this folklore with, which applies to the general essence of occupational folklore. The cast is no longer related just because they’re in the same show, but also because they embrace the customs that come with being a member. There’s no rule dictating what they do before their performance, but the tongue twister has become a tradition that is almost second nature.

The M word

Main Piece: 

There’s a superstition in the theater world about saying Macbeth or Lady Macbeth or any like version of that. So you cannot say the M-word in a theater or I take it very seriously. I don’t even say it in like a classroom within a theater. I get really scared of that too. I don’t know why I mean I don’t know why, but I do. And oh my god, one of my professors, I think was Scott Ferris who explained the reason but the reasoning behind it, of why it’s Macbeth and not like any other character like Word or name, but if you do happen to say, the M-word in the theater, you have to go outside you have to spit on the ground, spin three times, something like that. And then or else like something terrible is going to go wrong with your show, or the theater is going to collapse or something’s going to happen. The spirits of Shakespeare will come after you. 

Informant’s Relationship to the Piece:

Me: Have you ever had an experience with like saying Macbeth and like anything bad happening? 

Informant: No. Well, actually, for one show one of our actors said it in the dressing room, and was saying “oh my god, I love Macbeth. It’s such a great play.” And the other actors were like ‘Go outside right now’ and I checked in on them during intermission. And they were saying and they were outside making this-this other actor who said the M word spit and like, spin around. And I was like, ‘what’s going on? I was like, you guys, okay? Like, I’m trying to make sure this show is gonna happen. And they were like, No, he has to do this. And the show went great, nothing happened. I personally have never said it. Um, I know that there’s some people who think it’s so silly and they’ll just say whatever they want, and I think everything turns out to be okay. But there is a part of me that always fears the spirits will come and give us some obstacle.

Context: 

The informant is one of my friends, a 19-year-old theatre major at the University of Southern California. I was told this as we were hanging out in one of the theatres on campus as we were talking about folklore. 

Analysis:

I’m also a theatre major and I think the majority of us have different levels of belief about “the M-word”, where my informant takes it seriously to the point where she won’t even say the characters name unless it’s in one of her lines, but I’ve also met people who don’t really care, and of course, there’s always the one person that says it to annoy the people who really believe in it. But, those people are seen in a different light in a theatre space, because the whole point is to build an ensemble, a community, and when you have a person in the space who goes out of their way to scare people in the group, they take the trust out of the space. So even if you don’t believe it, it’s a sort of litmus test to see who you might not want to work with in the future if they know the superstition and like go out of their way to say it. I also think the “cure” for saying the word is fun because everyone has a slightly different way of doing it, where the steps are all basically the same, but with different variations within it, where like you have to spit over your left shoulder, you have to spin three times, then knock three times and someone has to let you back in. In some variations, you have to say the worst curse word you can think of. 

The Legend of Macbeth

Folklore/ Text: “Macbeth!”

KM: Uttering the word “Macbeth” within a theatrical setting immediately brings bad luck to your day. This legend dates back to the early 1600s during the first-ever performance of Macbeth. The actor that was intended to portray Lady Macbeth suddenly passed away before the show, forcing Shakespeare himself to play the part. Later, the person playing King Duncan was stabbed with an actual dagger, and killed in front of a live audience. Many more unfortunate events like riots and murders have occurred during the runs of Macbeth, upholding the strange folklore surrounding the play. The only remedy is to exit the theater after saying the word, spin around three times, spit over your left shoulder, and either swear or recite a line of Shakespeare dialogue.  

Explanation/ Context: After over 400 years of Macbeth being performed on stages all over the world, the continuous accidents and occurrences further exemplify the grim lore of the play. It’s almost common knowledge that the word is cursed, whether you’re involved in theatre or not. No accidents are the same, but somehow exclusively happen during performances of Macbeth. When something goes wrong– someone said “Macbeth!” Even the remedy is widely known and allegedly stops oncoming.