The Missing Murderer

To this day there is one memory that will create so much discomfort that I will have to physically move in my seat. The worst part: hundreds of people were watching me.

It's important to understand that my parents were the conservative type, which meant modern movies rarely made it through the front door. Instead, we watched a lot of old black-and-white movies and Shakespeare adaptations. Although I often found Shakespeare difficult, I understood the gist of it and absolutely loved the way they spoke. I would even sometimes belt out impromptu Shakespearean declarations about going to the bathroom. Ah, teenagerhood.

In the eighth grade, I had done some drama for competitions at my school and couldn't get enough of it. I was particularly into Shakespeare, so when the local Fine Arts Center announced a middle-school drama camp culminating in a "Shakespeare Festival," I was very interested. I was immediately signed up. I almost didn't care when I found out that the dialogue would be adapted and simplified - but it turns out I should have been.

The auditions were interesting. The judges would call a group of kids to come up on stage and shout instructions to us. "You're angry and sad," they would say. "Someone has just taken the most important thing in your life, and you want revenge." I stalked gloomily around the stage, scowling and brooding and pounding a fist into my open palm occasionally as if to say "That's it - he's dead!"

I was rewarded for this performance with the titular role of Macbeth and celebrity status at camp. My interests mattered to the other kids, and for the first time I had an entourage of girls that wanted to be around me. By day I would practice swordfighting choreography and practice our scenes dilligently; by night I would chat on the phone with a handful of girls - my favorite of which just so happened to be playing my wife, Lady Macbeth. I was King of Scotland and I felt like the king of the world.

Then came opening night of our three-nights-run: Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Patrons and parents showed up in their best concert clothes and the jitters were running high. The auditorium sat about 300 people, and on Friday night the audience was filling up. Several people in the cast threw up from the sheer nerves, which made the rest of us even more nervous. I was trembling when the curtain went up, but what happened next was magic: the show went brilliantly. The entire cast came alive and we sank our teeth into the performance. We killed it. By the time we were outside and the audience was mingling and chatting with us, I was riding a wave of euphoria and glee so high that my face probably should have broken. This was amazing. I might want to do this forever!

Then came the second night: Saturday. The Big One. The sold-out performance. I was ready.

About halfway through the show, Macbeth is feasting. He has hired some murderers to take down two political threats; someone comes and tells him that his mercenaries are back from their mission. He excuses himself from the banquet to go hear the bad news that they were not successful.

The announcement came: my mercenaries are back. I excused myself from the banquet to go hear what the cast member (known in the script as "Murderer") has to say.

"Murderer" wasn't there. Someone missed their cue.

I suddenly realized that three hundred people were looking at me, and I was supposed to be having a conversation with someone that wasn't there. I couldn't just do nothing.

But I was stunned, so I did do nothing.

Then I jolted myself into action. I did the thing that came naturally: I said, "um.... Murderer?"

Immediately I felt myself turn pale. That wasn't the right move. I could feel the eyeballs. All right - time for an impromptu Shakespearean soliloquy. This is what all those bathroom announcements had trained me for. I got this.

The only problem was that the script had been altered into contemporary English, and my impromptu Shakespeare was flowery and... well, Shakespearean. To this day I have no idea what I said, and wouldn't want to. All I know is it was entirely out of place, went on for far too long, became redundant, and meant to convey something along the lines of "I just had a conversation you couldn't see or hear, and my murderers failed; so now I'm upset."

Then I returned to my seat at the banquet table to finish the scene, and the moment I sat down I realized that Macbeth has to give these murderers of his further instructions. How was I going to handle that? I hadn't given my murderers any instructions and had just created a giant plot hole.

Clumsily, panicking, I interrupted whatever was supposed to happen next to intone to Lady Macbeth - in front of the entire banquet hall - that the murderers I'd hired to kill two innocent people had failed, and asked her to make sure to give them my updated instructions. Oh no. I just transferred the burden of this scene to my crush, in front of people who weren't supposed to know about this. Great. Now what fresh hell was she going to come up with?

Now it wasn't just the three hundred confused audience members looking at me like I was crazy; it was the entire cast as well. The panic and betrayal in the eyes of that poor girl playing Lady Macbeth haunts me still. I have trouble remembering eye colors, but not hers. They were blue and they were pissed at me. I believe her response was a hateful "yea." Well played.

In utter disarray, we finally got back on track and shakily finished the scene. The rest of the performance was somewhat deflated, although the scene where my head got "chopped off" felt pretty good. Please, just kill me for real.

It goes without saying that the congratulations were a bit muted that night. My Lady Macbeth didn't want to talk to me anymore. I couldn't wait for Sunday to come and go, which - somehow - it did.

The good news is that I retained my love for the theater - I kept acting - and I also learned some humility. I guess Shakespeare would say "All's Well That Ends Well." I'm just glad it ended.