Black cats, Friday the 13th, breaking a mirror and ladders all have something in common. Theybelong to a ritual practice of superstitions. Superstitions are bountiful in every society, tradition, industry and career. Baseball teams are full of beliefs and superstitions. Theatre has practical and scary superstitions. Well known superstitions include bad luck the follows spilling salt or walking under a ladder. Whether bad luck comes after walking under a scaffold or scissor lift is still somewhat unclear. The origins of superstitions are fascinating bits of historical fact and conjecture.
Walking under a ladder is advised against and said to be bad luck. If someone is working with a chain saw, welding torch or hydrochloric acid the bad luck could be immediate. Practical considerations aside, there is a long history of superstition attached to walking under a ladder. There are several suppositions as to how this superstition developed. One theory holds that the ladder forms a triangle either on its own with the ground as the bottom section or with the wall it is leaning against. In ancient Egypt the shape of a triangle was considered a magical form. Just consider the shape of the pyramids. Walking through this center of power was believed to bring bad luck. This may sadden all the people that spent years trying to work the spell of pyramid power. The Christian tradition holds the same belief in the idea of the Trinity. Walking under a ladder was seen as challenging the trinity and calling out to satan.
Other ideas concerning bad luck and walking under a ladder come from the fates of medieval fighters walking under ladders when trying to take a castle. Hot oil was often poured on those climbing up a ladder and those underneath would be showered with scalding liquid. Gallows were not always available or used for hangings. Ladders would be used for hangings. The superstition proposes that ghosts live beneath ladders and walking through would disturb them.
Theatres and theatre tradition is filled with superstitions. In a theatre, Shakespeare’s 29th play, Macbeth is always referred to as “That Scottish Play”. Mentioning or quoting lines from the play, especially back stage is said to invoke the curse. Some of the more famous incidents include; a world war II production of the play with John Geilgud in which four actors died, an 1849 riot that broke out at a performance at Astor Place in New York where 31 people died, in 1947 a young actor playing Macbeth crawled off stage and died of a stab wound. The story states he failed to stop reciting lines in the dressing room.
The list of tragedies is lengthy and provocative. Laurence Olivier was nearly killed when he played Macbeth. A weight came tumbling down and crashed inches from him. On the first night of that production, the theatre owner had a heart attack and died. In the midst of a performance the tip of Olivier’s sword broke off and struck a member of the audience inducing a deadly heart attack. There is a theory that Shakespeare used an actual witch’s spell when writing the part of the witches. Others believe he used real witches in the opening play. Other’s believe it is a play with a lot of fight scenes in dim light, making it a hazardous play to perform. Whatever the source, superstitions exist and have become a force of their own.
