The Curse of Macbeth

Macbeth... A play written to please a King, only to end in a curse that haunts it forever. King James took an interest in witchcraft, this is the reason Shakespeare created the witches in the first place. The story starts at the first showing of Macbeth, in which there was a scene of three witches dancing around a cauldron and chanting. As the story goes, real witches were offended by this scene, and as payback they decided to curse the play. According to myth, unless you are saying it as a line in the play, saying the name "Macbeth" in a theatre will cause bad luck to the play and anyone involved with it. If you do happen to say Macbeth inside a theatre, you're supposed to go outside, spin around three times saying a profanity, and ask for permission to be let back in. Some people may not believe in this curse, but there have been many things that might make those people rethink this. During the first performance of Macbeth, the actor assigned to play Lady Macbeth became sick and died, forcing William Shakespeare himself to play this role. King James was so displeased with the play that he banned it for five years. In 1672, the man playing Macbeth switched the fake daggerr to a real one, killing Duncan in front of a live audience. During another Macbeth performance in 1849, a riot broke out and 31 people were trampled to death. In 1934, one of the people acting in Macbeth became mute on stage. His replacement got suddenly ill and had to be hospitalized. These are only four incidents out of many that have happened during a performance of Macbeth. Coincidence? Or is the curse of Macbeth a real thing? I'll leave that up to you...