Supernatural on Stage
Ghosts and Superstitions of the Theater
by Richard Huggett
You've heard the expression "theater magic"? Usually it refers to the grand collaboration between audience and players. (Forget Coleridge's "willing suspension of disbelief"; what happens during a show is more profound and remarkable than the momentary yielding that the neat phrase suggests.) But there is a second meaning, somewhere in between art and anthropology, having to do with the way people use ritual and occult beliefs to structure their lives. This is Richard Huggett's concern in his 1975 book.
The work begins with a convincing passage on why it shouldn't surprise anyone that actors hold superstitious beliefs. In the best case, when you put on a show you choose to place yourself on the knife-edge between life and death. Yes, the death is metaphoric (nearly always), but that changes nothing. People who exist on a knife-edge are bound to pay close heed to anything they think will tip them one way or the other. Put that together with an innate organizing faculty and what results? A belief in gods. So actors follow a simple religion: Don't piss off the theater gods.
Huggett deals with three themes: superstitious practices, ghosts, and a curse. I should say he is an actor, not a scholar, and that (at least for purposes of this book) he takes an uncritical stance toward what he writes about. In other words, don't look to him to explode myths about good-luck wishes or new makeup supplies. Instead, he sets forth a wide variety of beliefs and rituals without making an exaggerated effort to debunk them.
Lots of performers have mascots and talismans. They carry toys or coins in hidden pockets, they keep mementoes of past hits and flops, or they travel with their pets. Huggett surveys a wide field of talent and presents many pages of short accounts: of the rabbit's foot Tallulah Bankhead always carried (and how it was buried with her), of St. Genesius medals worn by many actors, of Mrs. Patrick Campbell's nasty little dog Moonbeam, of bent nails found in the street (they make the lucky letter "V"). A 19th-century tenor named Tito Brignoli insisted that his mounted deer head appear in every opera he performed. The broad class of mascots includes people too; for many years John Wayne would not make a film without Ward Bond. George Spelvin and Walter Plinge fit roughly into this group. There can be weighty reasons why a performer doesn't want a credit, for example when local or union rules bar playing the role in the first place, and in such cases British actors go under the Plinge alias and Americans under Spelvin.
How do members of the cast and crew know a production is going to be successful or not? The technique is more humane than dissecting chickens: They watch for signs. If you trip over the scenery and fall on your face at your first entrance on opening night, the show will be a hit. If your shoes squeak, the audience will love you. A show with "green" in the title will have a long run (but many people believe the color green onstage is poison). "Peacock" in the title dooms the show, even if it isn't as bad as peacock feathers onstage. Opening a show at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, is a formula for success. A cat getting into the house is good, unless it crosses the stage; then it's bad, unless it poops in the dressing room; then it's superlatively good. The first person to arrive at the box office must pay cash for a ticket (i.e., not present a comp or a pass). A bad dress rehearsal, though not too bad, precedes a good opening night. Here's one that would have been at home in East Tennessee:
If a train carrying the company arrive[d] at a station with a graveyard on the right that was good luck; if it was on the left, that was bad luck and the performance that evening would be a bad one (p. 71).
What you can't do is manipulate the signs; deliberately ruining dress rehearsal won't work. But most people have personal rituals, and there are a few that are nearly universal. Peter Barkworth always walked to the theater by the same route; John Gielgud never took the same route twice. Henry Irving sent a comp to his ex-wife for every opening, despite the knowledge that her glare of hatred would throw off his performance. Michael Ridgeway always made sure he was first out of the dressing room, and he ironed his trousers on the empty stage whenever he could. The custom in many companies is that all the performers touch the act curtain before or after the show. If you spill powder makeup in the dressing room, you can cancel the bad luck by dancing on the powder.
Taboos certainly fall under the heading of rituals, some of them downright religious in tone. You must never wish an actor "good luck," perhaps because saying that would make the gods aware she needs some. Don't look over a performer's shoulder into the dressing room mirror; you may be giving him the evil eye. Props must be imitations, not objects from the real world; this is especially true of mirrors and flowers. Never open an umbrella upward. Don't whistle backstage unless you mean to summon the devil or get scenery dropped on you. Ballet dancers won't break in more than two shoes at a time. German performers refuse to have their hair cut once rehearsals begin.
Huggett presents an entertaining chapter on theater ghosts. Older theaters especially tend to be haunted, usually by benevolent spirits of actors or managers who made their lives there. The Drury Lane has, among others, a spirit who is never seen but often helps performers dress and sometimes even directs their movement onstage. While most of the examples are English, there are some American ones. The shade of David Belasco was seen from time to time in the New York theater named for him, wearing the same monk's cowl he affected in life. A tightrope walker who fell to his death in the Palace was sometimes seen and heard screaming (a bad luck sign, surprise!). The old Metropolitan Opera had a "regular" who hated sopranos; she was identified as the wife of a long-ago manager, a lady who indeed tried to distract leading sopranos. She did not accompany the Met when it moved to Lincoln Center, though.
The final chapter in Supernatural on Stage deals with Shakespeare's Scottish tragedy. The curse attached to this play is, beyond doubt, the most widely observed and best-documented theater superstition in the English-speaking world. I've seen it work, too: The Alliance Theater in Atlanta put up a production some years ago (a deviant seven-witch version) using a big revolving hill mounted on air casters. You pump air into these little boxes and they lift the set so that a few hands can turn it to change the scene. But the hill would tilt imperceptibly while in motion, so that some of the boxes came in contact with the deck and gouged little tracks. Before long--and it happened the night we attended the show--the air casters were lifting the set out of the gouges but not above the plane of the deck, and the hill could no longer turn. Not only did the damage end the run of the show, it also destroyed the wooden floor of the stage, which had to be replaced at a dramatic cost.
The history of the Scottish play doesn't merely include property damage, of course; you read of careers ruined, theaters burned down, and even deaths among cast, crew and families. Just naming the play brings bad luck, and it's even worse to quote from it in a theater setting. Huggett presents case after case of the novice who doesn't know any better and recites a line or a speech, scorns to perform the ritual to cancel the bad luck--then gets run down by a bus or watches in horror as a colleague tumbles off a platform. There are remarkably many such stories, and I for one accept the lesson they teach. "Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you."
A quick read (if you can find a copy) with connections to a vast number of figures in theater history.
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