If you are looking for a winning way to spend an evening, and rack up a few culture points, then get yourself down to Maynardville's outdoor theatre for this year's production of Macbeth.
This version is said to be very 'nightmare' -ish, so don't be suprised if the already goolish tale gets you just a bit jumpy.
Ironically there are may superstitions surrounding the play. actors believe that it is really bad lucky to call the play Macbeth..instead they refer to it as 'the Scottish play'
'The superstition seems to have arisen, in part, from the play's depiction of witchcraft, still a vital (though contested) belief in 1606, when the play was first performed. Like Marlowe's *Doctor Faustus* (1592?), in which staged incantations were occasionally reported to have raised real devils, *Macbeth* was believed to flirt dangerously with the Powers of Evil, bringing catastrophe down upon productions over the succeeding centuries. In fact, a staggering number of actors *has* suffered disaster during--or just after--productions of the play, including Stanislavski, Orson Welles, and Charlton Heston. Audiences and readers have also been afflicted; an 1849 performance was disrupted by a riot that killed more than 30 people, and Lincoln supposedly re-read it the night before his assassination. [2]
Those seeking rational reasons for the Scottish Curse have pointed to several features of the play as conducive to accidents: dim lighting and stage combat chief among them. Authentic productions often use broadswords, which are heavy and difficult to wield deftly, capable of inflicting considerable blunt trauma. Moreover, as Shakespeare's shortest play, *Macbeth* makes a logical last-minute addition to a company's repertoire and so can be dangerously under-rehearsed.'
The show runs from this week to the middle of February.
(PHOTO COURTESY OF CNN)
