{"id":3992,"date":"2023-10-06T22:35:43","date_gmt":"2023-10-06T22:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/?p=3992"},"modified":"2023-10-06T22:36:25","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T22:36:25","slug":"letters-from-fair-verona-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/letters-from-fair-verona-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters from Fair Verona: The Curse of the Scottish Play"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"3992\" class=\"elementor elementor-3992\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-29a8d52 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default wpr-particle-no wpr-jarallax-no wpr-parallax-no wpr-sticky-section-no\" data-id=\"29a8d52\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-adac0cb\" data-id=\"adac0cb\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-54a5977 elementor-widget elementor-widget-image\" data-id=\"54a5977\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"image.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.20.0 - 26-03-2024 *\/\n.elementor-widget-image{text-align:center}.elementor-widget-image a{display:inline-block}.elementor-widget-image a img[src$=\".svg\"]{width:48px}.elementor-widget-image img{vertical-align:middle;display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2240\" height=\"1080\" src=\"https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Letters-from-Fair-Verona-2.png\" class=\"attachment-full size-full wp-image-3996\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Letters-from-Fair-Verona-2.png 2240w, https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Letters-from-Fair-Verona-2-300x145.png 300w, https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Letters-from-Fair-Verona-2-1024x494.png 1024w, https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Letters-from-Fair-Verona-2-768x370.png 768w, https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Letters-from-Fair-Verona-2-1536x741.png 1536w, https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Letters-from-Fair-Verona-2-2048x987.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2240px) 100vw, 2240px\" \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-181a8ae elementor-widget elementor-widget-heading\" data-id=\"181a8ae\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"heading.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.20.0 - 26-03-2024 *\/\n.elementor-heading-title{padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title[class*=elementor-size-]>a{color:inherit;font-size:inherit;line-height:inherit}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-small{font-size:15px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-medium{font-size:19px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-large{font-size:29px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-xl{font-size:39px}.elementor-widget-heading .elementor-heading-title.elementor-size-xxl{font-size:59px}<\/style><h2 class=\"elementor-heading-title elementor-size-default\">The Curse of the Scottish Play<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-b78be75 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"b78be75\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.20.0 - 26-03-2024 *\/\n.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t<p>October 6, 2023<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-fc7509b elementor-widget__width-initial elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"fc7509b\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Dear Shining Saskatoon,\u00a0<\/p><p style=\"color: #0e101a; background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">There is something oddly beautiful in the change of seasons, but especially that of summer slowly slipping into fall. It\u2019s macabre, true, to enjoy the changing of leaves as they wither in the cold, crisp autumn air, and fall off the now bone-like white limbs of trees that rise from the earth towards a black sky like the alabaster hands of skeletons. The leaves\u2019 descent toward an earth that is slowly cooling from the heat of another summer is both satisfying and melancholic in a beautifully dark way. I wouldn\u2019t call it beauty in death, per se, but rather a beauty in rest and of the liminal space between this and that, here and there, now and then. For we know that the trees and the plants and the vitality of the summer will return once more \u2013 but for now, it rests. And while it rests, we are tempted by the darkness and all that lies within it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p style=\"color: #0e101a; background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p style=\"color: #0e101a; background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">October has become widely synonymous with all things that go bump in the night: vampires, witches, goblins, and ghouls. The monsters of lore find new ground in this time of the year, and we either revel in the things that scare us or hide from them. For me, dear reader, I can\u2019t help but be fascinated by the supernatural and, especially, the role these creatures have played in our past and in our storytelling. William Shakespeare was not afraid of the dark, and <strong>nothing has become scarier in theatre<\/strong> than <strong>saying the name of a certain Scottish play aloud during its production<\/strong>\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p style=\"color: #0e101a; background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p style=\"color: #0e101a; background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The now 400-year-long curse of\u00a0<\/span><em style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Macbeth\u00a0<\/em><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">has only grown in notoriety as the centuries pass. As the tale goes, in 17th-century Britain, a coven of witches was upset at Shakespeare for using real spells and real incantations in the scenes involving the three witches of\u00a0<\/span><em style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Macbeth<\/em><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">. In retaliation, they placed a curse on the play, and <strong>was seemingly the cause for the unexpected (and accidental) deaths of at least two actors in the original production.<\/strong> From a 21st century perspective, it is clear as to why such a legend was born, especially in the tumultuous social climate of 1606, where King James I had only just inherited the crown of England from Queen Elizabeth I three years prior, formally uniting a politically tense Britain and Scotland under one monarch. King James was, by all accounts, a peculiar ruler, whose obsession with witch hunting and magic, best summarized within his own published compendium on witchcraft lore entitled\u00a0<\/span><em style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Daemonologie<\/em><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0in 1597, did not go unnoticed by his subjects and especially not by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare received patronage from both King James and his wife, and likely wanted to stay in his good graces. In<\/span><em style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">\u00a0Macbeth<\/em><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, Shakespeare even references a close encounter King James was said to have had with witches while sailing off the coast of Scotland, where his ship met bad weather that he believed had been conjured by witches who were intent on drowning him. He ordered a witch hunt upon his return, but whether he was successful in his search remains unclear. <strong>Was the bad luck that plagued the original play evidence of a witchy intervention, or was the social climate of early 17th-century Britain, under the rule of a witch-obsessed King, too quick to attribute such coincidences, even as dark and unfortunate as they may have been, as anything but?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p><p style=\"color: #0e101a; background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p style=\"color: #0e101a; background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Other theatres throughout history have chalked up seemingly bad luck and unfortunate coincidences to the curse:<strong> the Astor Place Riot<\/strong> in New York in 1849, caused be a rivalry between two actors that were both playing Macbeth in opposing productions at the time,<strong> resulting in at least 20 deaths and over 100 injuries<\/strong>; other <strong>countless injuries, falls, and burns<\/strong> sustained by actors performing the play throughout the 20th century; <strong>a death caused by a sword fight scene in\u00a0<em>Macbeth<\/em> gone awry<\/strong> in 1947, and even<strong> a theatre being accidentally burned to the ground during a production of the Cursed Play<\/strong>. Sure, perhaps these can all be credited to mere coincidence: an instance of finding the curse simply because one is searching for it. But can we be positively certain that is the case? Obviously not, or else we wouldn\u2019t keep attributing the bad luck of theatres to the curse.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p style=\"color: #0e101a; background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p style=\"color: #0e101a; background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The curse thus envelopes a liminal space in our theatres between fact and fiction \u2013 we cannot be completely sure the curse is\u00a0<\/span><em style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">not\u00a0<\/em><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">real, just as we cannot be positively certain the curse\u00a0<\/span><em style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">is\u00a0<\/em><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">real. And so, we keep saying\u00a0<\/span><em style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">The Scottish Play<\/em><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, or\u00a0<\/span><em style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\">Maccers\u00a0<\/em><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">instead of the play\u2019s name itself. We still keep peering into the darkness and being shocked at the possibility something else is the cause of our misfortunes. Whatever the case, if you do happen to utter the play\u2019s name aloud in a theatre, you would do well to quickly cleanse yourself by leaving the theatre, turning three times, spitting over your left shoulder, reciting a line from another Shakespeare play, and waiting to be invited back into the theatre to effectively rid yourself (and the production) of the curse.<strong> If you don\u2019t you might be fine\u2026but then again\u2026maybe, you won\u2019t be.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p><p style=\"color: #0e101a; background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\"><span style=\"background: transparent; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;\" data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p>\u201cFair thoughts and happy hours attend on you\u201d (<em>Merchant of Venice, <\/em>3.IV),<br \/>From Fair Verona<\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Curse of the Scottish Play October 6, 2023 Dear Shining Saskatoon,\u00a0 There is something oddly beautiful in the change of seasons, but especially that of summer slowly slipping into fall. It\u2019s macabre, true, to enjoy the changing of leaves as they wither in the cold, crisp autumn air, and fall off the now bone-like [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wp_stack_schedule":false},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3992"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3992"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4008,"href":"https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3992\/revisions\/4008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shakespearesask.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}