One of the enduring myths of the stage is that a curse hovers over productions of Shakespeare's

Macbeth. It's too dangerous to perform. There will always be all kinds of unexplainable

accidents and injuries and problems. Is it true? Today, we're going to find out once

and for all whether a proper statistical analysis will give us a final verdict on the reality

of the curse. That's coming up next on Skeptoid.

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To our listening to Skeptoid, I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com. Toil and trouble,

the curse of Macbeth. They simply call it the Scottish play because even to utter the

title of Shakespeare's Macbeth is to invite bad luck. The very same bad luck in fact that

has plagued performances throughout its history according to theater lore. From tragedies

on stage to deaths and riots surrounding performances, the curse of Macbeth is one

of the most enduring superstitions of the stage and seems to be taken quite seriously.

The basic claim is that performing Macbeth or even speaking its title in a theater invokes

an ancient curse as old as the play. This curse strikes actors or other people associated

with the performance, sometimes killing or maiming them. This curse, so goes the tale,

has its roots in the play's occult storyline of witchcraft, murder and ghosts. The most

often cited reason for the curse is a belief at the time that Shakespeare had used real

...