Give Me No Yellow Roses

When I came running up the steps of the senior entrance Friday night (I was a little late) one of the freshmen actors was being frog marched out the door. He was commanded in a harsh voice to turn three times to his right, spit, and curse. I asked what was going on.

My easygoing friend Ellen scowled and ground out, “He said the name of the Scottish play.”

I opened the door and wiped my boots on the worn rugs. Another of my friends, Erin, was glaring at the boy through the windowed panels of the door.

“God save me from the superstitions of theater people.” I mumbled as I headed to the auditorium.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m as superstitious as the next person. I don’t walk under ladders or open umbrellas indoors. The breaking of a mirror and the sight of a crow send a shiver down my spine. But I swear theater people have two superstitions for every one of an average person. I can’t possibly believe them all. But there are some things I do out of respect for others’ superstitions—yeah it’s out of respect but it’s also so they don’t have an epileptic fit—like say break a leg or not say a certain name.

As I went backstage I heard veteran actors murmuring in agitation over the saying of that name. Apparently more than one person had been saying the M-word. A total of five people said it. Forgive me for my snipe, but they were all freshman. The upperclassmen were ready to slaughter the lot of them. It was clear people were spooked.

You are not supposed to say Macbeth in a theater. It’s fine everywhere else but you absolutely cannot say it in a theater. It curses a production. Well that and it pisses a lot of people off.

Like I said before I am not inclined to believe all the superstitions that run rampant through the theater, but sometimes things happen that make you believe. Before the show even began on Friday night a girl almost fell down the stairs and three people couldn’t find important articles of clothing. Not too uncommon but the night just kept getting worse.

When I went out on stage something just didn’t feel right. The atmosphere just felt off—a disturbance in the force if you will. Hanging out backstage, waiting to go on, Ashley dropped a can of hairspray on her foot making it bleed. Mikes kept crackling or not coming on at the right times. None of us felt that the numbers were as smooth; something always seemed to go wrong.

I evacuated to the greenroom, a kind of sanctuary for the actors waiting in the wings. Kelly, Grace, Emily, and I sat up there whispering about all the strange coincidences that had been going on since the unmentionable had been mentioned. Someone told me Robin had hurt her hand somehow, and that Ashley’s toe was actually broken. It seemed like the actors were getting mauled.

Then the Havana number came up. We were still sitting in the greenroom we heard the music go terribly wrong. Something had happened to the pit. For some reason they skipped an entire section of the score and flipped around different parts. We sat up in our chairs and looked at each other in horror. That had never happened before.

“It’s the Scottish Play,” one of the girls whispered in dread.

When I went back downstairs at intermission the tension was bubbling over and people were getting violent. A screaming match was going on between a few actors over a comment or two. The pit band skulked out, well aware that they were being blamed for Havana and the intense hatred glowing in the eyes of actors. That one actor that I had seen on entering the theater was being smacked repeatedly for placing the curse upon the production. Everyone was running out of room on the edge.

Solemn faced people began lining up for act two. It seemed we were conceding to the dead king. I must admit act two went far better than act one, but there were still too many hitches to be coincidental. Sometimes things just happen without a reason. But if some idiot has said the M-word in a theater during a production there’s a reason. If you don’t believe the superstition then believe a former nonbeliever.