When I was in college at the University of Southern California, I was in an awful production of Macbeth. It was one of the worst things I have ever been in.

I played Lennox. In Act 5, scene six, I was one of the soldiers who are coming to attack Macbeth. The way the scene was blocked, we were supposed to enter through the house (i.e., the audience part of the theater). We had been promised that there would be lights in the aisle so we could see our way to the stage, but on opening night, when we entered the theater, there were no lights. It was extremely dark. As we stumbled our way toward the stage, I could see that the actor in front of me seemed to be frantically shaking his leg. I could not figure out why. Then right before we climbed up the steps to the stage, he reached down and yanked off some woman’s handbag. His foot and gone through the strap as we stumbled down the aisle.

Then to make matters worse, when we finally got on the stage, the lights came up on the wrong area. I lost it. Fortunately, the scene was very brief. I think it had been cut down to just one line: “Your leafy screens throw down, / And show like those you are!”