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Home , The Scottish Play

JOURNAL JAY BRADY PHOTOGRAPHY

Rituals, robes, and hungry ghosts

Stories of backstage and lore

By Katherine Shirek Doughtie Two editions of the Gypsy Robe.

THEATRE IS THE perfect breeding life figures, channeling grand passions Some traditions are very personal, ground for superstitious : so much and living out extraordinary dramas. others universal. Some actors believe that can go wrong that when anything works Collectively we are practitioners of stage shoes must be kept on the floor, right it seems like a form of divine in- illusion, striving to make the audience rather than on a table or in a cupboard. tervention. A theatrical production is as fall under our spell for a few hours (This seems counterintuitive in theatres close to controlled chaos as anyone while we weave magic into their lives. that have rats, who enjoy the taste of truly wants to get. There are so many No surprise, then, that the practice of patent leather, but the superstition per- variables—rigging, lighting, pyrotech- theatre includes its own versions of sists.) Signs of bad include encoun- nics, and other effects—that can be witchcraft, in the form of intricate back- tering a funeral on the way to the the- fatally dangerous if not implemented stage . atre, passing another actor on the stairs, correctly. There is the precarious al- Actors through the centuries have and speaking the last line of the play (or chemy among the script, the director, developed a multitude of ways to en- the “tag” line) during rehearsal. the actors, and the musicians. Finally, sure a good opening or a long run, or Using the phrase “” to wish add the most important and least pre- to simply avoid disaster. Katharine Hep- someone good luck is a commonplace dictable element—the audience itself— burn crosses herself when she passes backstage superstition. By wishing grave and you have a recipe for either sub- the Martin Beck Theatre, where she misfortune on someone, the theory goes, lime transcendence or utter disaster. flopped more than fifty years ago. Some you trick the gods into believing you Theatre itself depends on magic. actors refuse to unpack their makeup don’t need good luck and thus avert Styrofoam masquerades as the skyscrap- boxes until after the first reviews ap- their malicious and capricious interfer- ers of New York, brightly colored lights pear. One initiation ceremony for ence. There are variations on this theme, evoke the savannas of Africa. Actors young actors involves urinating in their such as “fall down backward,” or “skin off transform themselves into larger-than- dressing room sinks for good luck. your nose.” This latter is a reference to

JANUARY 2001 • DRAMATICS 5 the times when stage makeup was so By far the most potent backstage super- the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem. In- noxious that it frequently pulled the stition revolves around Shakespeare’s stead of witchcraft, they explored the skin off in patches when repeatedly “Scottish Play.” This play reputedly origi- themes of voodoo, and to that end applied and removed. The underlying nally contained authentic witchcraft brought in an authentic witch doctor as hope is that the actor will have enough incantations and has had a history of evil part of the cast. All agreed the play was work to develop a splotchy complex- luck. S. L. Wellen, director of theatre at a spectacular success, except for one ion. Mt. San Antonio College, explains that reviewer, Percy Hammond of the Herald A good luck tradition on Broadway the play was written for King James I, Tribune, who called it “an exhibition of is the passing on of the Gypsy Robe who held a passionate belief in the oc- deluxe boondoggling.” The negative from one troupe of hoofers to the cult. It is rumored that the king himself review came to the attention of the cast, chorus of singers and dancers at the may have even supplied some of the and a group of players, including the opening of the next musical. Covered original spells. witch doctor, visited one of producers with an elaborate array of souvenirs To say the name of this play or speak of the show. When they asked the pro- and from previous shows, it is any of its lines onstage is considered the ducer for verification that this critic was bestowed ceremoniously to a member ultimate in bad luck. Some people will an “enemy” and a “bad man,” the pro- of the chorus on opening day by the never utter it in any conversation; Ken- ducer confirmed that the piece was not previous owner of the robe. The new neth Branagh always refers to it as the a favorable thing. Hammond came owner, wearing the robe, circles the Scottish Play, as though he has never down with a sudden illness the next day stage three times counterclockwise and heard its real name. and died shortly thereafter. everyone touches the robe for luck. The ill fortune befalling productions With all these deaths going on, it’s The honored recipient keeps the robe of this play or people who have slipped not surprising that theatres have plenty until the next Broadway musical opens. and said the “M-word” onstage is exten- of their own ghost stories, too. Ghost A new memento is added, including sive. Lights blow out, injuries occur; lights are always kept burning onstage cast signatures and other details, and accidents seem more prevalent than overnight when the theatre is dark, the tradition is then repeated. usual. Of course, there may be rational allegedly to keep the ghosts at bay. (I Individual performers have taken reasons for some of this: the Scottish always assumed it was to keep from even the smallest rituals to an extreme. Play is often performed with dim light- making new ones as unsuspecting noc- Nineteenth-century actor Josephine ing and employs a great deal of onstage turnal wanderers might fall into an Gallmeyer was always late arriving to combat, including the use of broad- open orchestra pit.) her dressing room because she be- swords in the more authentic produc- Many theatres have stories of their lieved punctuality brings bad luck. tions. In addition, this work is Shake- own supernatural supernumeraries. German soprano Therese Tietjens speare’s shortest: the Scottish Play is Clyde Parker, the technical director of would not shake hands with someone often added to a schedule at the last Gammage Auditorium (the exquisite over a threshold at parting; she be- minute and can perhaps end up being Frank Lloyd Wright theatre in Tempe, lieved if she did, that person would die dangerously under-rehearsed. Arizona) tells of three gremlins that a speedy death. In an extremely curi- Whatever the reason, the play seems keep him and his crew company. One ous ritual, the nineteenth-century to trail bad luck like dust follows a stam- periodically drops sheared-off nuts and French actor Virginie Déjazet would pede. The Astor Place Riot of 1849 took broken bolts down from the grid. (Care- make her entrance with a tiny seed in place during a performance of the Scot- ful inspection shows all the hardware her mouth, which she would throw tish Play. The script was said to be one of intact.) Another one leaves “fresh globs away as soon as she needed to open Abraham Lincoln’s favorites; he suppos- of grease and goo” on the stage, the her lips. And stories are told of a edly reread it the night before his assassi- origins unknown and especially perplex- Viennese tragedienne who always per- nation. In 1937, a stage weight crashed ing when the orchestra shell is covering formed with a white mouse hidden in into a backstage chair at the Old Vic, the entire area. Then there’s the Phan- her bosom. barely missing , who tom Door Closer. This one operates late By contrast, backstage crew supersti- had just vacated it. During that same at night, usually when there is only one tions seem rather reasonable. Whis- run, the opening was postponed because person in the theatre. The sound of the tling on stage is considered very bad the director and the actor playing Lady latch releasing alerts the lone stage- luck, but it makes some sense when were in a traffic accident. And hand, who can usually look around in you know its history. In Elizabethan Lilian Baylis, the theatre’s grande dame, time to see the door swinging silently times the riggers were often sailors who died on the day of the first rehearsal. shut. didn’t speak English and so the cues (Years later, on opening night of an- Dennis Potter, the technical director were given by whistles. Thus you might other production of the play, Baylis’s at the KiMo Theatre in Albuquerque for think you’re whistling “Greensleeves,” portrait fell off the lobby wall.) the last fourteen years, has had plenty but to a stagehand it could mean In 1935, Orson Welles produced an of time to learn his ghost’s quirks and “Drop the fire curtain right now!” all-black version of the Scottish Play at preferences. In August 1951, three boys

6 DRAMATICS • JANUARY 2001 were at the KiMo watching a Western in. Frantic phone calls revealed that, to avert the of fate. Others prob- matinee. One of them went downstairs oblivious to the opening, they had all ably concoct these elaborate systems to and was caught on the stairwell when gone to see that after-noon’s matinee of calm their nerves or otherwise fill un- the concession stand water boiler ex- Star Wars. Emissaries were dispatched to comfortable spaces of time. Perhaps, ploded underneath him. He died at the go into the local movie house and roust noticing a long series of coincidences, hospital. the kids out of their seats. They were we hedge our bets and use The KiMo’s ghost, if indeed it is this duly returned to the KiMo and the mati- with both agendas in mind. poor child, is usually a benign entity, nee started thirty minutes late. No matter what role they play (for us playing practical jokes occasionally and But that was only the beginning. or our supernatural counterparts), back- only requiring a steady stream of dough- During the show everything that could stage superstitions will no doubt evolve nuts to keep it happy. The stagehands go wrong did. Lighting instruments and continue to amuse, enhance, and comply, adding the last doughnut from exploded, cables fell from the grid. even protect us as long as theatre is in every coffee-break box to strings that People were tripping, forgetting their existence. they hang in loops on the backstage lines (even though they had just come walls. The arrangement seems to work from a long run in Santa Fe). Onstage Katherine Shirek Doughtie has been technical harmoniously for everyone. doors opened and closed without cause. director for Opera A La Carte, a touring Except for once. An Equity troupe It was a disaster of the first order. Gilbert and Sullivan opera company, for the came in for a two-week run of A Christ- During the break between the mati- past seventeen years. She lives in South Pasa- mas Carol. The upstage wall, brick, was nee and the evening show, someone ran dena, California. visible and worked well with the brick out and purchased two dozen dough- motif of the scenery itself. At dress re- nuts and the crew festooned the place More backstage stories of the natural and hearsal, however, the director noticed with them, putting them everywhere supernatural can be found in Theatrical the string of doughnuts tied to the elec- they could. Not too surprisingly, the Anecdotes by Peter Hay (Oxford University trical conduit on the theatre’s wall and evening show went off without a hitch. Press, 1987). For a detailed examination of ordered it removed. Whether you are a believer or not, the legends surrounding M** Big mistake. A half-hour before the these rituals certainly illustrate the com- ****, see “Superstition and the Scottish Play” opening matinee, someone realized that plexity and magic of the world back- by Patrick M. Finelli in Akropolis, February the children in the show hadn’t checked stage. Some people undoubtedly hope 1996.

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