The curtain was less than five minutes away from rising, and the anxiety was felt in everyone on stage. It was oddly comforting, the fact that you weren’t the only person worried that you might soil yourself before the show even started. There was a certain camaraderie between all of us, with even the biggest prima donnas feeling the pressure starting starting to get to them.

Our director Mrs. Watson was giving her infamous “do the absolute BEST show ever this time, but no no pressure,” speech, and I was questioning my wisdom in joining this production. I’d always wanted to act, and when I saw a local theatre company was putting on Macbeth, one of my favorite plays, I figured I’d give it a try. After a few months, I couldn’t hear the word “Macbeth” without feeling a bit of my soul die.

At this moment, I reminded myself that I was just in the ensemble and if I screwed up it wouldn’t be a big deal, no matter what Mrs. Watson said. I was just supposed to be playing an angry Scotsman in a kilt that felt a bit too revealing for my tastes. I couldn’t be expected to deliver the performance of the century when I barely had a speaking role. Just look serious and concerned in the background, that’s all there is to it.
Mrs. Watson, however, seemed to think that this wasn’t so much a show put on in a run down excuse for a theatre by people who had nothing better to do as much as a huge broadway production. She took no excuses from anyone for any mistakes, and worked her cast and crew like pack mules. I admired her passion in a strange way, but her delusions of grandeur were being to cost me my sanity.
“Ellen!” I heard her screech my name in my direction, and I was brought out of my head into the real world.

“Yes ma’am?” I said in a way that was supposed to come out confident and professional, but instead reflected my true state of apprehensiveness.

“You were in the bathrooms last, correct?” She glared accusingly at me, as though I personally was responsible for whatever it was that went wrong wrong. To be fair though, she was giving that look to whoever was unfortunate enough to be in her sights.

“No ma’am.” I answered. We didn’t have much of a budget, so our “theatre” was actually an abandoned synagogue. As a result, we had to use the bathrooms as dressing rooms, despite the fact that we had a rather large cast. I had taken one look at the line forming outside, and decided I’d rather just change at home.
“Well, I don’t want anyone to panic,” she said with an expression that looked uncomfortably close to panic, “but the bathrooms are locked.”
“Well, there’s got to be somewhere else to change.” I replied.

“No, but…” she leaned in closer, her voice down to a failed attempt at a whisper, “some of the actors are in there.”

“WHAT THE…” I was about to say some very inappropriate things when Mrs. Watson quickly shushed me.

“Be quiet! Anyway, do you how to get them out, by any chance?”

“What makes you I’d know?”

“Well, I mean… I asked everyone else, and I heard you went to prison once…”

“Where the hell did did you hear that?”

“I don’t want to name names, but, Carlos.” she said sheepishly.

“Jesus, you can’t trust Carlos! He’s probably the least trustworthy person in the this room!”

“I heard that!” Carlos sauntered in, with his usual self-satisfied expression. It’s not that I didn’t like Carlos, he was a good friend, but he had a habit of stretching the truth. He liked excitement in his life, and he was willing to stir up whatever he could to make sure he was never bored. However mad I was at him, it was good to have some things explained. Everyone had been avoiding me lately, and when we did have to interact, they would be weirdly polite, almost as though I was holding a sword above their head and they were trying their best to persuade me not to drop it.

“Ha ha, very funny. What’d you say I did?”

“Triple homicide, drug related. You’re on probation and this is a form of community service.” Only Carlos could’ve said the words ‘triple homicide’ in such a proud manner without being a genuine psychopath. No matter what he did, I knew he didn’t actually want to hurt anyone. While he definitely had some issues to resolve, I’d known some genuine psychopaths, and Carlos did not fit the profile. “You know, maybe if you didn’t always look like you were going to kill someone, they wouldn’t have believed me.”
“Do you know anything about this bathroom thing?” I inquired, trying not to look as irked as I really was.

“Believe it or not, I’m actually not involved in that.” I glared at him, and he raised his hands defensively. “I swear on Ringo Starr’s grave.”
I rolled my eyes. “Ringo Starr isn’t dead moron.”

“Alright then, John Lennon’s grave, is that okay? Anyway, if you want to get them out, talk to Byron. He’s the one the locked them in.”
I still didn’t trust him completely, so the three of us went to the bathrooms to check. I knew Byron, our leading man, and I knew that he could be a bit melodramatic, to say the least. His real name wasn’t even Byron, and he seemed to be faking what I think was meant to be a British accent. He and Mrs. Watson were both convinced that this whole production was a bigger deal than it really was, and though everyone in this production had some sort of ego, his was unbearable. To be honest he was probably the best actor in this play, but that wasn’t exactly saying a lot.

“Byron!” Mrs. Watson yelled, knocking madly on the door. “What are you doing in there?”
“The show must not go on!” I heard him yell, and I imagined him dramatically prancing around the bathroom in his kilt. Fighting that admittedly hilarious image, I thought of what say next.
“Why not? Why can’t the show go on?”
“Someone said the name of the play! It’s over now, we’re cursed!”
“Wait, what?” I turned back to Mrs. Watson, expecting her to be as amused and frustrated as I was, but was surprised to see a look of genuine horror.
“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness.” She was wringing her hands and looked about to cry. It was then I remembered the old theatre superstition that saying the name of the play “Macbeth” was thought to bring bad luck. Mrs. Watson was, of course, a firm believer in most of these tales, and most of us went along with it just to humor her.
“Look, it’s just an old wives tale, relax sweetheart.” Carlos groaned.
“That’s easy for you to say, you’re the one who said it!” Byron shouted back. The worst that had happened to this production was the start of the relationship between Byron and Carlos. It was as though they’d skipped their honeymoon phase and went straight to old married couple. Not to mention the one extremely religious girl in the crew who kept saying she’d “pray for them” in an oddly threatening way every time she saw them together.

“What?” Carlos said, now on the defensive. “I didn’t think he’d get this worked up!”

“Look, Carlos is sorry, aren’t you Carlos?” He rolled his eyes, but nodded in agreement.

“It doesn’t matter, you can’t take back what you’ve already done! All this work, ruined!” I imagined Byron fake swooning to emphasize his point.

“Just let us out!” cried out another voice from behind the door. “There’s like, five of us in here!”
“I can’t, the show will be a disaster.”

“Jesus, it doesn’t matter!” I yelled, my exasperation finally reaching its peak.
“I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

“I said it doesn’t matter. Who cares if the show sucks? Do you know who’s seeing it? Friends, family, people who had nothing better to do, that’s it! If you screw up, just one time, it doesn’t matter. The world won’t stop spinning, and your ‘career’ won’t be ruined. In the vast infinite-ness of the cosmos, one play in one broken down synagogue on one planet among millions is insignificant.”

“It matters to me.” He whispered. “I know you don’t care, but I’ve been an actor for years, and you know where I’ve gotten? Nowhere. Every show I do, I have to believe is the one that will change that, you know?”

It was about then that I realized what a complete jerkwad I’d been this whole time. All throughout the play, hell, throughout my life, I’d only ever really seen other people as obstacles, getting in the way of my wants and needs, never thinking about those of others. I mean, I’d do things for other people, sure, but only so I could reassure myself that I was, in fact, a good person. Byron was not just some drama queen meant to frustrate me, he was a person who had his own frustrations. It’s crazy how the fact that the world doesn't revolve around me was such an earth-shattering revelation to me, and I felt deeply ashamed. Carlos, Byron, Mrs. Watson, even that crazy Christian girl. They mattered as least as much as I did, if not not more. And I’d been a jerk, to use the most PG term. I realized that I wanted to rectify that, and that would have to start here.

“Well…” I said, trying to think of what to say, “nothing will change if you lock yourself away, will it?”

“No.” Byron said. “No it won’t.”It was then that the door finally began to tentatively creak open, and out he came.

“I’m sorry.” I said, “and so is Carlos.” I elbowed him a bit less harshly than normal.
“Yeah, I’m sorry too.”

Byron smiled at the both of us. “Come along then, my friends, and Carlos,” he said, “the show must go on!”

It was something he’d said everyday we’d been doing this play, but for the first time I let myself believe it.